Chinese Folktales: "The White-Nosed Cat" and Other Tales From the Chinese-Speaking World

Some Words of Encouragement

2012-02-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

I almost never post anything personal other than season's greetings and Memorial/Remembrance Day thoughts. Today I'd like to share some information about an incident that happened last month: my Gmail account's being hacked and then reclaimed. I have other accounts, like many people, but my being unable to log into this account meant also access denied to this blog. I love writing on this blog and was not about to take this lying down. So I persevered and finally, thanks first to God and then to Google/Gmail, was able to recover my account and, in effect, my blog.

So I'd like to take a moment and share some things I have learned from this. Preparation and awareness are the best cures. Here are some tips I've learned that will lessen the likelihood of your Gmail and mine ever being hijacked again.

1. Never ever use the same password for multiple sites. Very important. Don't allow laziness or convenience to lead you to this error. You can write your usernames, passwords and security questions in a designated notebook.

2. Change your password frequently. Some advise doing so bimonthly or more often.

3. Follow the recovery steps Google & Gmail provide you. If you're unable to log in, if your password is rejected or if you, as I did, get the telltale message, "You changed your password.....day(s) ago," then you know you have a problem. Just follow through the steps. You can read more about them here: Gmail Account Recovery

4. To make it possible for Gmail to recover your account, you should have some data on hand for the recovery form. You will be asked to remember the date you were first invited to Gmail. Do you remember it? I remembered the year but not the exact date. Fortunately, that seemed to be helpful enough. My guess is if you can remember the exact date, that would make the recovery process all the quicker. If you have saved all your correspondences, go back to the very first or second email in your inbox, one of which would be the invitation. Also note who invited you and his/her email address. You can write all this down in that secure notebook that contains sensitive information. Also write down four or five email addresses that you have a history of communicating with on your Gmail account. You will be asked to supply such email addresses. In any case, approximate responses are better than nothing if you cannot be exact. You will also be asked to supply applications used for that account, such as Docs, News, and so on. If possible, try to note exactly when you began using them. Every time you think of something you can add, such as an email address or other pertinent datum, you can go back and resubmit a recovery form. Sooner or later all the data you add will tally with what the Gmail computer finds, and the tide will turn in your favor; you'll get the message, "Congratulations! You're steps away from reclaiming your account . . ."

5. Note the password and the last time it was successfully used. You will be asked what the compromised, erased, altered, etc. password was and the last time you were able to use it to successfully log in.

6. Have more than one Gmail account for recovery purposes.

7. Above all, don't give up hope. I spent about five very bleak days trying to reclaim my account, and all the efforts paid off, despite my being somewhat inept with technical matters, data, terminology, etc. A lot of naysayers on the web will tell you a hacked account is next to impossible to recover. My experience proves otherwise. Bottom line: If I could recover my account all on my own, so can you!

Best wishes & Good luck!
Fred Lobb

Happy New Year -- Year of the Dragon!

2012-01-22T21:55:00.001-08:00

Cheers,
Fred Lobb

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T10:05:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all of my readers and their family members!

Fred Lobb & family

The Bride of Sir Gentleman Snake -- Part Three (Hmong)

2011-12-18T13:42:00.001-08:00

On and on the babies roared, crying even more than before, as if for some dire reason.

Ah Yang carried the babies down closer to the river.

"I'll let them look at the fish," she told Ah Yi. "Maybe they'll become distracted and stop crying."

"All right, " said Ah Yi, staying behind where she was, by the rocks.

"Oh, Ah Yi!" cried Ah Yang suddenly. "You've got to come over and see!"

"See what, Older Sister?"

"These beautiful multicolored fish! Hurry and come and see them before they swim away! Hurry!"

Poor unsuspecting Ah Yi! She got up, left the rocks and came down to the riverbank.

"Where? What fish?" asked Ah Yi.

"Over there! Over there!" Ah Yang was practically jumping up and down, pointing. "Come closer!"

Ah Yi stood next to Ah Yang and looked in the direction of Ah Yang's finger.

Dong!

Ah Yang pushed her sister Ah Yi down into the rapids of the river. Ah Yi flailed about in the water and cried for her snake husband but to no avail. Her cries became weaker and weaker until her head and arms sank beneath the water.

"Little Sister's become fish food!" said Ah Yang, cooing to Ah Yi's two children. "Little Sister's become fish food!"

She went back up to the rocks with the two children and waited for the snake husband to return.

Well, she was now dressed up in Ah Yi's clothes, she carried Ah Yi's two small children, and, of course, she even looked like her twin, Ah Yi! What could go wrong?

By and by, Sir Gentleman Snake returned from his trip into the forest, empty handed. Ah Yang immediately put on an act, pretending she was angry.

"Where the devil have you been?" she asked. "How could you leave your wife and children out here while chasing after birds? The nerve you have!"

Huh, thought Sir Gentleman Snake. That's not like Ah Yi; that's not like the woman I married!

He stared at Ah Yang.

"Who are you in my wife's clothes, holding my children?" he asked.

"What?!" Ah Yang screeched. "Children, do you hear that father of yours? Did you hear what he just said? Listen to yourself! You must be having vision problems! First of all, you can't even catch a measly crow--some hunter you are! Ha! And now, you are suggesting I'm an impostor? Perhaps your eyesight is failing."

"Well, I . . ."

"Take a close look at me, O mighty eagle-eyed hunter! Am I not wearing your wife's clothes? What's out of place, Husband? the tunic? the skirt? the leggings? Am I also not carrying the two children your wife bore? Or, are you ready to deny them as well?"

She then began to weep. Sir Gentleman Snake did not wish to see his wife cry, if she was really his wife.

"Please stop crying! Let's go on home!"

And so they headed home, and on their way back, the snake husband was not entirely convinced the woman walking next to him, carrying his two sons, was indeed his wife. He held his tongue, though.

They finally reached home, with Ah Yang now successfully taking Ah Yi's place as the wife of Sir Gentleman Snake. A number of years later, Ah Yang bore him a child. She now lived very well with this young and handsome husband, Sir Gentleman Snake, and was as happy as a maggot in pork fat--no cares, no worries, just endless bliss.

She also continued to assume that Ah Yi was dead.

Ah Yang, however, was wrong: Ah Yi was very much alive.

Ah Yang had pushed Ah Yi into the river, and Ah Yang had seen her sink below the water. The daughter of the Dragon King saw what had befallen Ah Yi and rescued her. The Dragon Princess escorted Ah Yi to the underwater palace, and there Ah Yi was given a place to live. There, she was offered a position as a maid of honor and stayed for several years.

Speaking to the Dragon Princess, Ah Yi said, "My Princess, I deeply thank you for saving me and giving me a home for all this time, but I really must leave now and find my children and husband!"

"Very well," replied the Princess. "I understand. I'll see you back to the surface."

The Dragon Princess accompanied Ah Yi to the surface of the river and made sure she landed on the bank safely before returning to her watery realm.

Ah Yi now found herself lost in the forest. She didn't know the direction to the house of Sir Gentleman Snake. Would she be able to find it? Even if she did, would her husband still love her? And her children! She now felt the greatest pains of despair--to have survived in the watery kingdom only to die alone in the forest while searching for her husband and children!

It was precisely at this moment that Ah Yi turned into a little crow and flew up into the sky.

Flying and searching, flying and searching, she finally located her husband's home early one morning and descended to circle it.

Inside the house, Sir Gentleman Snake had just gotten up and was washing his face when he heard the pretty chirping of a small bird, a crow, outside his window. He listened carefully. Was the bird telling him something, giving him a message? The bird seemed to be singing:

"Listen up! Listen up!
Your children's noses are running!
Their little noses need to be wiped!
Listen, up! Listen up!"

He went to check on the children.

Ah Yang had also now gotten up and was washing her face when she too heard the crow sing. The little bird now sang the following:

"Listen up! Listen up!
Ah Yang's got a dirty heart!
Whether she ever washes or not,
She'll always be dirty through and through!
Listen up! Listen up!"

Livid like someone jumping on burning coals, Ah Yang stormed out of the house, picked up a good-sized rock and threw it at the bird, knocking it off the branch and killing it.

Sir Gentleman Snake came out and saw the dead crow lying on the ground.

Poor cute little creature, he thought, fated with just a short, violent life . . . Oh, well . . .

He buried the little crow outside the house.

A few days later, from out of the little bird's grave grew a brilliantly verdant and sturdy tree. Sir Gentleman Snake loved this tree. He would go under its ample branches to rest and to cool off in the heat of the day and to escape from the annoying mosquitoes that seemed to be everywhere except under the branches of this tree.

However, each time Ah Yang tried resting by this tree, she felt as if she were in an inferno and would begin to sweat buckets. Not only that but she would be attacked a by virtual armada of mosquitoes. All this happened more than once. After sweating and being stung once too often, Ah Yang, muttering words that our parents would not much appreciate if they were written down here, stormed into the house for a hatchet. She then chopped the tree down.

Her husband must not have been too happy, but what can one do once a tree is chopped down? He used some of the wood to make a club for beating laundry. The club worked very well for the snake husband and children's clothes, but not so well for Ah Yang's. As a matter of fact, her clothes became even dirtier after using the club.

She snarled, took the club, burnt it to ashes and scattered the ashes in the field. She then went stomping back into the house.

The next day Sir Gentleman Snake was out in the field exactly at the spot were the ashes had been scattered and what did he find? A mud-snail shell! He thought this find was very interesting and beautiful, so he took the shell home and placed it in a tub of water.

Then, on a day when Sir Gentleman Snake, Ah Yang, and the children had gone up the mountain to chop wood, the mud snail stirred. From out of the shell came not the mud snail but, instead, Ah Yi! While the snake husband and Ah Yang were away, Ah Yi tidied up the house, neatly folded her husband's clothes, and washed the everyone's clothes.

The work done, Ah Yi returned to the snail shell just before Ah Yang and the snake husband returned home.

This situation went on for a while without rousing too much suspicion in Sir Gentleman Snake. After a period of time, though, he became suspicious.

I don't see my wife doing anything around the house, he mused, yet the house is always neat and clean! I've never seen her do much laundry, yet all of our clothes are washed and neatly folded.

Then it dawned on him: all these mysterious happenings--the singing, speaking crow; the mysterious tree that seemed to sprout from the crow's grave overnight; the laundry club that could somehow make clean clothes dirtier than before; and the appearance of the mud-snail shell in the field--all of them somehow seemed in their own ways to cast doubts on his wife.

Doubts began to smolder in Sir Gentleman Snake's heart as well but he said nothing.

One day he, Ah Yang and the children were out in the field when he turned to her and told her he had to return to the house.

"Why?" she asked. "We just got here."

"I want to bring some more fertilizer, a couple of sacks more. Wait for me here and watch over the children. I'll be right back."

Actually, Sir Gentleman Snake had made up the need to get the fertilizer. He wanted to see who or what it was that was cleaning his house and doing the laundry. Very stealthily like a jungle cat, he climbed up the house and then lodged himself in the eaves. From there he could see inside the house.

He waited and watched for any movement within the house . . .

Before long, his waiting paid off. He saw a young woman emanate out from the mud-snail shell in the tub. She stood up and stretched. Then she went about sweeping and washing.

Ah Yi! thought Sir Gentleman Snake.

He jumped down from his perch below the eaves and pushed open the door. He ran in and embraced his wife, his true wife, the real Ah Yi. A lot had happened; a lot had changed but not enough changes to matter.
They continued to embrace.

Outside, the bright sunny noon day sky gave way to menacing black clouds. A strong wind whipped through the trees, and soon hail came down.

Ah Yang and the children were still out in the field. As soon as the wind started blowing and the hail started coming down, Ah Yang put down her hoe and fled the area, leaving the children behind.

Off she ran, with a black cloud in pursuit, lobbing hailstones at her head. When she could run no more, the rain became a torrent of water, a river just for her, washing her far, far away, to some place where her corpse became a meal for shrimp.

The wind and the rain then stopped as suddenly as they had appeared. Sir Gentleman Snake and Ah Yi rushed out to the field and picked the crying children up and carried them back home.

From then on, they all lived very happily and lovingly as a family!

Notes

from Miaozu minjian gushi; Li Yingqiu, ed. pp. 129-134.

This story is similar to Han Chinese versions from Southwest China and Taiwan: a sister is murdered by a jealous older sister, who takes her place; the murdered sibling returns in a variety of incarnations (bird, plant, inanimate object, etc.); the murderess is humiliated by the actions of these (re)incarnated objects and animals; the murderess dies a gruesome death. However, the Hmong story differs in that the snake husband never appears to be anything but a true gentleman, unlike in the Han version, where he threatens, at least in the opening, his own future father-in-law. In this story, the sisters' father is given more of a role. Crows/ravens also play a prominent role in the story. Often harbingers of evil in folklore, crows/ravens here also serve positive functions. The Han version also doesn't provide a spouse for the jealous sibling; in the Hmong version, she marries a monkey, which turns out to be a terrible bargain compared to the fortunate younger sister's snake husband. Also of interest is the hailstorm that foreshadows Ah Yang's doom.

This story is classified as AT 33D, "The Snake Husband."

Motifs: D1812.5.1.15, "Hailstorm as a bad omen"; cE613, "Reincarnation as bird"; E631.6, "Reincarnation in tree growing from grave"; cF420.5.1, "Kind water spirit"; K2212, "Treacherous sister"; N741.1, "Concealed wife awaits favorable moment to come forward"; Q467, "Punishment by drowning"; Q552.19, "Miraculous drowning as punishment."

The Bride of Sir Gentleman Snake -- Part Two (Hmong)

2011-11-22T14:31:00.000-08:00

You can believe that Ah Yi was not too pleased with the prospect of having to lug her future husband in a basket into the house! Still, she did so.

That very day the two daughters were married. The next day, the daughters, now brides, said their goodbyes to their father as they headed off to the homes of their respective grooms.

On her way to the snake's home, with her husband, the snake, by her side, Ah Yi passed into the heart of the forest, where the sunlight was weakest and thinnest.

Where, O where, is he taking me? she wondered. How am I ever going to be able to survive out here in this place?

At about this time, the snake suddenly spoke to her and said, "You go on ahead. I've something to do. I'll catch up to you."

"'Go on ahead'? 'Go on ahead' where? I have no clue where we are! Let me wait here by the path for you."

"Very well."

The snake then left the path and entered into the thick forest. Moments later, a very handsome young man emerged, startling Ah Yi.

"Come," he said. "Let's continue."

"I don't know you! Who are you?"

The youth laughed and replied, "Ah Yi, I'm your husband, the snake!"

Ah Yi just stared at him.

"All right," he continued. "I can see you don't believe me. Just a moment . . ."

He dug into his bag slung over his shoulder and brought out a very long snakeskin.

"See? Now do you believe me? I just shed this skin."

Ah Yi was speechless. What could she say? She didn't need or want to say anything, for she was absolutely, deliriously happy! So arm-in-arm, she and her handsome husband made it to his house.

A year flew by, and the bride of Sir Gentleman Snake had now become a proud, loving mother!

What of Ah Yang and her monkey husband?

The past year had not been so kind to her. She and her husband, not having a true home of their own, had to roam from place to place for shelter. If this weren't bad enough, both had resorted to thievery. On the third of February, they stole stalks of wheat; on the sixth of June, they dragged away others' millet when no one was looking; then, on the ninth of September, they made off with some farmer's ears of rice. By the twelfth of November, they had found themselves a cave in the highlands and, there, they began to eat their ill-gotten victuals.

And that's how they lived.

Two years had now passed.

One day at the marketplace, Ah Yang overheard some woman talking about Ah Yi and her husband, Sir Gentleman Snake, and how wonderful, doting, considerate and handsome a husband he actually was. Not only that but her now two children were both healthy and beautiful. The four of them were at currently visiting Ah Yi's father . . .

Ah Yang heard all this good and well. She then made a decision: she would abandon that useless monkey of a husband and return to her father's home. There she could see for herself this gorgeous husband of Ah Yi's who could change himself from snake to man, who provided so well for his wife and who was the father of two handsome boys.

And so, instead of heading back to the monkey's cave to live that hardscrabble, miserable life, she returned to her childhood home.

Yes, it was all true, Ah Yang discovered upon reaching her father's home. The snake was no longer a snake but a truly beautiful specimen of man and a loving husband and wonderful father to boot.

How lucky that Ah Yi is! I should've had this man for a husband, Ah Yang thought. All this is so unfair. After all, I'm the older sister.

Then and there Ah Yang's mind began to work feverishly some evil plan . . .

"Welcome home, my older daughter!" Ah Yang's father had said.

"Thank you, Father," Ah Yang replied. "It's good to be home. I've missed you . . . and Ah Yi."

Hmm, thought the father. Something's wrong here. Don't know what it is, but something's definitely wrong. I've got to help Ah Yi and help her watch out for whatever may come.

Ten days later, Ah Yi, her husband and children were prepared to return to their own home. Very early that morning, the father, holding two empty bamboo baskets, approached his two daughters.

"Girls, my cucumber crop this year was really bountiful," he said. "I'm going to need your help."

He handed a basket to Ah Yi. To Ah Yang, he then held out a basket which he knew to have a hole, saying, "Now you two go out to the garden and pick the cucumbers until your baskets are full. Let's see who has the fuller basket!"

The two went out in the early morning light to pick cucumbers. Each worked quickly and energetically to fill her basket; however, no matter how hard Ah Yang worked and sweated, she just couldn't fill her basket to the brim.

Ah Yi returned to the house while Ah Yang still labored to fill her basket. The father took her basket and handed her sticky-rice cakes for her and her husband's breakfast.

"Hurry up and eat!" he said. "No need to wait for Ah Yang. You've got a long road ahead of you and need to leave soon, so eat! Eat!"

Ah Yi thought this was odd, but she and Sir Gentleman Snake did as they were told. They ate the sticky-rice cakes, picked up their children, said goodbye to Ah Yi's father and headed back on the road to their home.

Ah Yi and her family were long gone by the time Ah Yang and her basket finally stumbled into the house.

What had taken her so long? While outside, she heard the crows warbling:

"Gua, gua,

Line it with small twigs!

Gua, gua!"

Ah Yang looked at her basket. She poured the cucumbers onto the ground, picked up small twigs and leaves, and lined the bottom of the basket with them, covering up the hole. She then picked up the cucumbers on the ground and walked back to the garden, where she was able to pick even more. Soon, her basket was overflowing with cucumbers.

Looking around the house, Ah Yang asked her father, "Where's Ah Yi?"

"Maybe in her room, combing her hair!"

Ah Yang ran to Ah Yi's room, took a peek, and came running back to her father.

"No, Father, she's not there."

"Well, maybe she went back out to the garden to pick more cucumbers!"

Ah Yang then headed out the door and back to the garden and immediately returned.

"No, Father, she's not there either!"

"Well, then, perhaps she and her husband and children stopped by Uncle's to say hello."

Ah Yang practically flew out the door and ran to her uncle's place. Soon after, she returned. She headed into the kitchen and saw the bamboo steamer on the table. She lifted the still-warm lid and saw it was empty inside. She put two and two together: her sister and family had already eaten and left.

Meanwhile, Ah Yi and family had followed the path from her father's village until they arrived at the edge of the river. There, they decided to take a rest.

While they sat by the river, a crow flew by and landed on a branch of a nearby juniper tree. Sir Gentleman Snake saw this and said to Ah Yi, "A nice meal for us is about to arrive. Wait right here while I fetch it!"

He grabbed his bow and quiver of arrows and approached the tree. The crow immediately flew off and landed onto the branch of a tree farther away. Again, Sir Gentleman Snake headed towards that tree with stealth. Yet again, the crow flew off, landing somewhere else, and, yet again, Sir Gentleman Snake headed off furtively in pursuit. This went on and on until Sir Gentleman Snake disappeared into the dark forest.

There, by the river, Ah Yi, her two boys strapped to her back, waited, without any sign of her husband's return.

Little did she know that she and her boys were not alone! On the same path that led to the river was Ah Yang. Hiding, she observed her sister from afar. Now that Ah Yi's husband was out of the picture, she got up and made her way to her sister and nephews.

"Ah Yi, my little Ah Yi!" cried Ah Yang. "I've caught up with you! You and your husband leaving like that without as much as a 'goodbye'!"

"Come and sit with us as we wait for my husband," said Ah Yi. "He's gone off to hunt for our next meal."

"Ah Yi, let me take your two boys from you so you can give your poor back a rest!"

"Oh, thank you!"

Ah Yi stood up and let Ah Yang hold the two boys, both of whom immediately began to cry.

"Poor babies!" said Ah Yang. "It must be this tunic I'm wearing that bothers them. Let's not make them cry. Take your tunic off and trade it for mine."

"Oh, all right . . ."

She did so and they traded tunics, wearing each other's; however, the two babies continued to cry even more than before.

"I've got it!" said Ah Yang. "It's this old skirt of mine. Surely that must be it. Let's hurry and trade skirts!"

"If you think so . . ."

"I do, so hurry up!"

Both took off their own skirts and wore each other's, but the babies continued to cry even more loudly without stopping.

"I know what it is now!" said Ah Yang. "It's my bare legs! They're not covered by leggings as yours are! Take your leggings off and let me wrap them around my legs! That should do the trick."

"Very well . . ."

Ah Yi unwrapped her leggings and gave them to Ah Yang, who wrapped them around her legs. She now had on Ah Yi's tunic, skirt and leggings, and still the upset babes roared without any indication of tiring themselves out.

Notes

from Miaozu minjian gushi, Li Yingqiu, comp.; pp. 123-128.

The dates listed in the story, at least the first two, seem to correspond with actual Hmong holidays and celebrations as observed in China on the Chinese lunar calendar. (See Zhongguo minzu jie'ri dachuan [Compendium of Holidays of the Peoples of China], Gao Zhanxiang, comp. Beijing: Zhishi Chubanshe, 1993; pp. 442-501.)

February 3rd: a holiday for the Hmong of Taijiang County, Guizhou Province, called simply in Chinese, "February 3rd." Villagers wear their finery;young men and women sing romantic songs to each other. Those of the opposite sex not yet acquainted with each other will sing the "Inquiring Song," which asks one's name and location of home village.

June 6th: Guizhou's Song Festival on June 6th apparently began to commemorate Hmong resistance to Qing exploitation and the execution of Fu Meilou, a heroic Hmong youth who sought to shoot symbolic arrows at the Qing emperor in Beijing. Usually set in a bucolic location, the festival includes much singing of romantic and nostalgic songs as well as singing competitions. Young men and women will sing romantic lyrics in response to each other. Also on this date is Racing Day, in which Hmong and members of other minorities race horses. Finally, there is Grain Day. On this day, offerings are made to the Great God of the Five Grains. Many will slaughter some chickens, prepare rice wine and invite friends over for a feast.

September 9th: No holidays or festivals are specifically listed for September 9th; however, two movable events appear on the lunar calendar during the first two weeks of the ninth month in Guizhou. One is the harvest festival called, among other names, "Rice Stalk Harrowing Day," a day in which friends exchange gifts of sticky rice cakes and chicken. Another occurring sometime in this period is "Bullfighting Day," a day which includes sheng (reed) flute performances, singing and dueling bulls.

November 12th: According to Dr. Kou Yang, the Hmong of Hunan and Guizhou provinces celebrate their new year in November, presumably after the major harvesting. (See page 4 of the following link: www.hmongstudies.org/KYangHSJ8.pdf). Is November 12th thus a fixed date for New Year's? Possibly not; perhaps this date in the story is simply evocative of this festive, joyous, family-centered time of the year, emphasizing the degradation and deprivation Ah Yang encounters while married to her monkey husband.

I'd be very grateful if those readers who know more about the venerable Hmong culture than I do, especially Americans of Hmong descent, can correct me if I am inaccurate about any of the above dates and their significance to the Hmong people!

The Bride of Sir Gentleman Snake -- Part One (Hmong)

2011-11-01T13:33:00.000-07:00

Years and years ago, there was an old man, a widower, who lived with his two daughters. The older daughter was called Ah Yang and the younger one, Ah Yi.

Very early one day, the old man, a woodcutter by trade, went up to the mountains. He spied many fine fir and pine trees. He put down his lunchbox and got set to work. Time went quickly, as it does for us when we age. Soon it was already noon. The old man had only cut down four trees. He took his hulu gourd, sat down on a stump, and drank some water.

He looked at the four small trees he had felled and sighed.

"Four small trees," he said aloud to himself, "that's it! Just four puny trees . . . And I'm not getting any younger! Today four trees--how many this time next year or even in the next few months? I wish a strong young man could help me out. I'd marry off one of my daughters to him! Oh, well . . . "

He prepared a small camp fire and sat back when he heard a voice.

"Grandpa! What did you say just now?"

He looked up. A small magpie was fluttering its wings above him.

"Nothing, Magpie, nothing. I'm just tired . . ."

"No, Grandpa. You certainly said something, something interesting, an oath or vow."

"All right, you heard me. I offered to let a healthy strong young man who can help me in my work marry one of my daughters. What of it?"

"Ah, yes! I knew I had heard correctly! I shall be the one to help you!"

The weary old man was too tired to be annoyed so he softly chuckled.

"Oh, Magpie, you're tiny and have no arms or hands. How in the world could you chop down trees?"

"No, problem, I can do it! Fasten the ax to my tail."

"What . . . ?"

"Just do it!"

The old man sighed again, got up and tied the ax to the bird's tail.

Well, the magpie flew up to the trees and whirled around the tree trunks without chopping down a single tree! All it managed to do was to lose the ax somewhere on the ground and strip its own tail of all its feathers.

The old man looked at the magpie, flying lamely now with its bare behind, shook his head, and thought, That was mighty dumb! That old magpie surely made a great fool of itself and me too for my even bothering to listen!"

The embarrassed magpie flew off; the old man got up to look for his ax.

The next morning at dawn, the old man was once again up on the mountain.

He chopped and chopped, wiped his brow and moaned, "Aii, what will it take for me to find a strapping young man to take over for me and to wed one of my daughters!"

He heard some rustling in the bushes and then a voice ask, "Grandpa, what did you just say?"

He looked in the direction of the voice. Just beyond some bushes was a large rock. Upon it were a snake and a monkey.

"I said nothing," the old man replied.

"No, no, you distinctly said something," said the snake.

"We both heard you," said the monkey.

"All right, so you heard what I said. What of it?"

"We can help you!"

The old man first looked at the snake.

"A monkey has hands and feet which can grab pretty well," he said. "Even a magpie has two feet. How in the world could you possibly cut anything down, Snake?"

"Tie your ax to my tail and you shall see!" replied the snake.

"Very well," said the old man, tying his ax to the snake's tail. Then, turning to the monkey, he said, "I brought two axes today. I suppose you'd like to cut down a tree as well?"

"Yes, and you don't need to tie the ax to me!" said the monkey.

"All right, Snake and Monkey, hop to it . . ."

The two animals set off to cut trees!

The snake slithered by the base of each tree and with a swish of his tail, he cut down each tree, big, small and in between. Soon, a large part of the dense forest lay broadly open due to the snake's quick and skilled efforts.

"Unbelievable!" cried the old man. "Simply unbelievable!"

He turned to see what the monkey had done; the monkey had wielded the ax as long as, if not longer than, the snake and had not yet felled one tree, though not from lack of effort. He just about collapsed, drenched with sweat.

No results, thought the old man, but he certainly tried, poor fellow. No shame there. You have to respect one who tries hard.

The old man gave the two animals the boxed lunch that Ah Yi that morning had packed for him.

"Boys," said the old man, "eat up. You're both coming home with me."

The snake and the monkey followed the old man home.

Outside the front gate, the old man said, "Boys, wait here. I'll tell my two girls to come out and greet you."

He walked into his house and what did he find? His two daughters engaged in a quarrel! The hardworking Ah Yi was trying to get her lazy older sister Ah Yang to do some work around the house, such as cleaning and setting the bowls and chopsticks for dinner. Ah Yang, though, didn't feel like helping.

"Girls, girls!" said the old man. "Stop arguing! We have guests outside. Do you want them to laugh at us?" The girls immediately became silent and looked at their father. "Good. Now listen to me. I've brought two suitors home, one for each of you. They're waiting outside for you now. We shall have a wedding today, girls! Now go outside and graciously invite them into our home."

"Very good, Father. You know the custom. I'm the older sister. My wishes come first!"

Ah Yi was angry but held her tongue as Ah Yang went out the door ahead of her.

The two girls went outside to the front gate and saw no one there, just a snake and a monkey looking at them, a sight not unusual in the forest.

"Father!" shouted Ah Yang from outside. "There's nobody here! All we see are only a monkey and snake. Are you going to tell us that they are our suitors?"

"Yes!" cried the father through the window. "They are the pair."

Ah Yang and Ah Yi looked at each other and shrugged. Ah Yang figured the monkey resembled a man more than the snake did, so she chose the monkey to be her husband.

"You get the snake!" Ah Yang snickered to Ah Yi as she, Ah Yang, led the monkey by the hand into the house.

"Well, then," said Ah Yi to the snake, "how am I supposed to bring you into the house?"

"Very simple, kind Maiden," said the snake. "Get a bamboo basket--I'm sure you have one. Let me crawl in and then carry the basket inside!"

Notes

from Miaozu minjian gushi (Hmong folktales), Li Yingqiu, comp. Taipei: Mutong chubanshe, 1978; pp. 117-122.

This is the Hmong version of the Southeastern Chinese/Taiwanese folktale "The Bride of Lord Snake." This version is significantly different from the Taiwanese one in my Amazon Kindle book Taiwan Folktales. Already, in this first of three parts, we have a glimpse into an old Hmong custom: the bride leading the groom into the bride's home.

Taiwanese Folk Beliefs -- Series 2

2011-10-04T22:46:00.000-07:00

1. If You Have to Be Bitten . . .

To the majority of us who are not marine biologists or zoologists, a random turtle and/or tortoise placed side-by-side with a Chinese soft-shelled fresh water turtle (Trionyx sinensis) may not seem terribly distinctive from each other. However, the ancestors of today's Taiwanese would have disagreed. The mouths of most turtles and tortoises in the wild were thought to be inlaid with gold. Thus, for one to be bitten by a species of turtle or tortoise other than the Trionyx sinensis would mean one would eventually become wealthy. However, the bite of the latter, the Chinese fresh water turtle, was to be avoided at all costs. It was thought that its beak would clamp down onto human flesh until either the peal of thunder of the sound of a pestle grinding inside a mortar could be heard. Only then would its jaws slacken and release whomever it had bitten.

2. The Sensitivity of Snakes

Snakes, of course, have no legs. Therefore, one must never speak of this fact; otherwise, any snake that overhears mention of this might become angry and seek out the speaker.

3. Sons of the Dragon

A dragon has nine sons.

The first son loves loud noises, so bells are adorned with the images of dragons.

The second son loves music, so musical instruments are adorned with images of dragons.

The third son loves to drink, so drinking vessels are adorned with images of dragons.

The fourth son loves mountain peaks, so the tops of tall buildings or other structures or places are adorned with images of dragons.

The fifth son loves weaponry, so weapons are adorned with images of dragons.

The sixth son loves literature, so images of dragons are found on movable type.

The seventh son loves litigation, so images of dragons are found in courtrooms.

The eighth son loves sitting, so chairs are decorated with the images of dragons.

The ninth son loves heavy objects, so the images of dragons may be found on plinths.

4. Tree Spirits

Camphor, banyan and maple trees, once they reach a very old age, become tree spirits and are liable to turn malevolent and harm people. Thus, many people erect small shrines beneath the branches of these trees and, there, make offerings to them.

5. Flower Spirits

Flowers also house spirits. One is not supposed to pluck flowers at night lest the spirit of the flower becomes angry.

6. Twitching Eyebrows

A twitching eyebrow is a bad omen. This is especially true for children, for a child's twitching eyebrow indicates a beating is coming.

7. Bridal Sedan Chair

In days past the rear of a bridal sedan chair was decorated with the images of the bagua (the symbols from the Yijing, or Book of Changes), the taiji (i.e., the well-known yin yang symbol, like the ones found on the respective flags of the Republic of Korea and Mongolia), and a rice sieve. Why? These symbols together represent all the innumerable things in the universe and, thus, many children and descendants.

8. More Lucky & Unlucky Dream Symbols

Lucky dream symbols:

to hear the sounds of bells and drums . . . good fortune

to obtain shoes . . . great luck

to come into contact with blue-green clothing . . . to be assisted by a god(dess)

to lie down upon rice grains . . . great luck

to lie down upon a rock . . . great luck

to be disparaged by someone . . . great luck

to handle a rock . . . to give birth to a future member of the nobility

Unlucky dream symbols:

to obtain grains but then only to lose them . . . a sign of impending illness

to be beaten by a ghost . . . bad luck

to be beaten by one's wife or mistress . . . bad luck

to see two women engaged in a brawl . . . a sign of impending illness

to have the bowstrings break . . . bad luck

9. More Omens

to have an itchy ear . . . someone is thinking of you and misses you

to have an itchy foot . . . the earth god is giving you a warning

to stumble or fall outside while engaged in some enterprise . . . a sign of impending harm

to have twitching eyelids . . . someone is disparaging you (see 6. Twitching Eyebrows above)

to have a ringing in the ears or hot ears . . . a sign of either impending good or bad luck

to see a "tailless" or otherwise incomplete rainbow . . . a typhoon is imminent

to witness a falling star come to earth . . . a huge disaster is imminent

to have one's bamboo hat blown off by the wind is very unlucky . . . for the hat to be blown into the ocean or down a mountain could indicate the end of one's days is approaching.

10. Taboos

Don't pull out any white hairs . . . to do so will make white hairs proliferate.

Don't pull out any hair on the feet . . . to do so will lead to one's being frightened by ghosts.

Don't wear washed clothes which have not been first dried and then folded . . . to do so may lead one to become a "bamboo clothing pole ghost" (i.e., one who has a skeletal frame and all that that entails).

Don't let a child walk underneath a stretched out blanket or a woman's skirt . . . otherwise, the child might not grow taller than the child's current height; any adult, especially a man, involved in violating this taboo can expect bad luck as well.

Don't dry clothes outside at night . . . otherwise, any future child born might be of short stature or the birth might turn out to be stillborn.

Don't mend clothes while wearing them . . . otherwise, the wearer might be accused of being a thief.

Don't eat beef . . . much illness will follow.

Don't stick chopsticks vertically into a bowl of rice . . . it is very unlucky, for it mimics what is done for the dead.

Don't speak of "turning over" the fish while eating fish with any guest who is a sailor or fisherman . . . to do so could foreshadow his boat's capsizing at sea.

Don't look in the mirror while eating . . . to do so will lead to one's becoming an inarticulate speaker.

Don't let a little girl change seats while eating . . . otherwise, after she marries one day, she may end up "changing partners."

from

Taiwan minjian gushi, Cang Dewu; Taiwan minsu, Wu Yingtao. (See 9/12/11 for full citation.)

Notes

These are bits and pieces of long outmoded and discarded folklore and are not meant to represent the belief systems of most people alive today.

For a legend about spirits housed in trees, see story #4 at 3/26/09.

Sweet . . . Fragrant . . . Gas?! (Taiwan)

2011-09-16T14:31:00.000-07:00

There were once two brothers who lived somewhere off in the countryside. The older brother was named Zheng Shuihuo, and the younger brother, Zheng Jinmu.

While they were born of both the same mother and father, the two couldn't have been more different. Shuihuo was ruthless, heartless, capable of great wrongdoing. He was his town's local bully, fighting just for the fun and meanness of it all and always taking advantage of the weakness of others. The result--everybody in the countryside feared him, avoided him, and cursed him behind his back. Jinmu, on the other hand, was quiet, deferential, modest, and sincere. He was welcomed and respected by all.

And despite more than once being beaten and having his lip split by his Shuihuo, Jinmu still treated his brother with respect. Shuihuo, was after all, his older brother.

Then came the day to split up the family property after the remaining parent had passed away. Unfortunately, Shuihuo had strong-armed the local mediator to award him, Shuihuo, the lion's share: the house, the best farm fields, and so on. The three--Shuihuo, Jinmu, and the mediator--sat down in the house to discuss the distribution.

"The ancients said," the mediator spoke, "'As a tree grows branches, so the branches spread.' Thus, gentlemen, it's entirely proper for you to split from each other and start your own families. Life will thus be easier, more convenient for you both.

"You're still a young fellow, Jinmu," continued the mediator. "What do you, at your age, need such a huge spread for? Therefore, your brother has generously agreed to give you the plot of land along the foothills as well as an ox."

Jinmu nodded and thanked his brother and the mediator. Yes, the whole thing had been rigged from the start, and Jinmu knew this. However, he didn't quibble; that wasn't his nature. He agreed to the transaction.

The deal was done; the papers were signed; the mediator left.

"We're finished here," said Shuihuo to his brother no sooner than the mediator had exited the gate. "Don't even think about coming over here with your open palms, expecting a handout. The door is over there. Keep off my land."

Jinmu, who had never had any intention of asking his older brother for money, nodded and left for his portion of the land, the sandy stretch of field along the foothills that came with an old ox and a small hut that Jinmu would have to call "home."

Jinmu rose early the next morning and began plowing what was now his land. Working this basically useless plot of sand would be a challenge, but he decided to make the most of it.

Day after day he worked the land with no obvious result. One thing that did happen, however, was he grew attached to the old ox that came with the land and the hut. It tried its best to do the work expected of it, but Jinmu didn't push the poor creature too much. Instead, he let it rest under a tree much of the time.

The ox and I--we're in this together, he thought. It depends on me, and I depend on it as well. It can make or break my rice bowl.

He would lovingly stroke the ox's neck and throat, feeding it grass and other grains that it loved. He grew to love this old ox and sensed it loved him back as well.

One day, he left the ox tied to the tree while he went out for a bunch of grass stalks. The creature seemed to be all right when he left. When he returned, the ox was now lying on the ground, still, not breathing. From its mouth came a very bitter stench. It was clear the ox was dead.

Jinmu knelt beside his animal friend and partner and cried and cried.

Now what shall I do? he thought. I've lost my right arm and hand . . .

He dug a hole for the ox near the tree and buried it.

Three days later, he took a nap next to the ox's grave. He had a dream in which cold ripples of a wind bathed his face and eyes. In this dream he looked up to see the ox munching grass right before him and continually nodding its head, as if happy.

The ox then said, "Tomorrow you will notice a fruit growing upon my tree. This fruit, once ripe, can be picked and eaten. This fruit will earn you great fame and fortune . . ."

Jinmu woke up with a start. The ox was gone. He looked up at the tree--there wasn't a hint of a fruit growing on the tree.

That night, Jinmu tossed and turned on his cot, anxiously awaiting daylight and a chance to rush out to see if there was any fruit on the tree. As soon as the sun was over the horizon, he ran out to the tree, and, sure enough, there were strange fruits growing all over the tree. Not only that, but they appeared ripe. Jinmu picked one.

The ox said I could eat them and that they would bring me 'great fame and fortune,' he thought. All right, well here I go . . .

He ate one. It was delicious, sweet like honey. He ended up eating ten of them.

Hmm, he thought. They're filling. Now I don't need to prepare lunch.
As he walked back to his hut, a sudden deep pressure and dull pain gripped his bowels. He had the desperate urge to relieve himself. Holding his stomach, he half-waddled, half-quick stepped back to his outhouse.

Instead of relieving himself in the manner he thought he would, he relieved himself in a different manner: he emitted an extremely thunderous passage of wind. Instead of the usual foul odor that would accompany such an eruption came instead the most fragrant, most redolent scent imaginable, an aroma akin to the scent one might smell in the fanciest perfume and incense shops.

Huh! he thought.

Now he had no idea for what good purpose this fruit could be ultimately used, but, nonetheless, he was pleased that the tree was laden with these large, red fruits.

Meanwhile, over in town, the area's wealthiest man, Merchant Zhao, lay bedridden with an unidentifiable disease. He was the kind of stingy man of whom the ancients had said "would not pull out a single hair to save the world." A small army of physicians had failed to cure him of his illness, so all day long for many weeks he lay in his bed, moaning. At times, he would resemble a madman, suddenly screaming and pushing his hands forward to drive away horrible green-faced demons, visible only to him, with long claws and fangs. At other times, he would act like a small child and giggle at things only he could see or hear.

His wife, son and daughter were all at their wits' end about what to do.

Now one day a very raggedy old beggar, looking for a handout or some rice, approached the Zhao family mansion gate. The servant manning the gate waved his arms furiously.

"Old beggar! Get away from here!" shouted the guard. "The master of the house is ill and doesn't need to be bothered by the likes of you!"

The beggar, feelings ruffled, turned away from the gate and headed elsewhere. As he did, he turned his head back to the servant at the gate, laughed and sang a little song he had invented on the spot:

"Ha, ha, ha!
Merchant Zhao lying ill on his bed!
Needs to be saved by a fragrant fart.
Otherwise, he'll soon be dead!
Ha, ha, ha!"

The servant watched the mendicant leave. He thought about the song the man had sung. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed intriguing. Why had the man sung about "a fragrant fart," of all things? Was there even such a thing? Was this one of those off-handed suggestions that sounded so ridiculous, so preposterous that there had to be some merit to it? Could it be one of those things that was crazy but too crazy to overlook?

All these thoughts ran through the servant's head. He immediately left his post and ran through the narrow market streets of the town looking for the beggar, to ask him further what he meant. Maybe--just maybe--the beggar was on to something. Alas, the beggar was nowhere to be found, so the servant immediately ran back to the Zhao mansion and asked to speak with Merchant Zhao himself.

The servant stood before the stricken Zhao on his sickbed and told him what the old beggar had said about "a fragrant fart."

"Are you out of your mind?" shouted Zhao, raising his head from his pillow. "Bodily gas smells awful! It always has and always will! Get out of here with your 'fragrant fart'!"

Mrs. Zhao stepped in to comfort and to calm down her husband.

"Husband," she said, "hush and relax! Don't exert yourself over this. Please just listen. 'Fragrant fart'? Just because a mendicant said it is no reason to discount it. Did the ancients not say, 'Beneath the rags may lie a saint'? Here's what we'll do. We shall put up notices at all the crossroads, offering a great reward, one hundred thousand gold coins, and even the hand of our daughter, to whoever can provide the means of delivering such a . . . a fart! This may be your only option left. Don't pass it up!"

"One hundred thousand gold coins, Wife? Have you too lost your senses? That much money? No, no, no!"

Just then he witnessed one of the leering green demons pop up right in front of his face. He shrieked and waved his hands as those gathered around the bed just shook their heads in pity and dismay.

"Good! Just go and do it!" he cried. "Ten thousand gold coins, fine! Hurry and put the notices up!"

That day the notices went up at all the crossroads.

Soon everyone gathered in tea houses, inns and restaurants was talking about the same thing: Merchant Zhao's offer of one hundred thousand gold coins and his daughter's hand in marriage to whoever could supply a "fragrant fart," whatever that was. Much of the talk centered on the extraordinary amount of cash being offered; however, a very fair amount of the talk concerned the downright loveliness of Miss Zhao, even more beautiful than "Lady Chang O who ascended to the moon," as one wag put it.

All the men of the area longed for the chance to present themselves to Merchant Zhaoto claim the rewards; not one, though, had a clue as to what to do about providing "a fragrant fart."

Soon, the Zhaos' notice came to the attention of the one man who could indeed produce marvelous fragrant gas, Zheng Jinmu. He hurried over to the Zhao mansion; before doing so, however, he gobbled down ten of his special fruits.

By the time he reached the Zhao mansion, his quick steps had slowed down considerably; he wobbled and lurched towards the gate, his hands clutching his abdomen.

"I . . . read . . . your . . . notice . . . I . . . am . . . here . . . to . . . sell . . . my . . . fragrant . . . farts," he moaned to the servant at the gate.

He was hurriedly ushered into Merchant Zhao's bedroom before Mrs. Zhao, their chief servant, and, of course, on the bed, Merchant Zhao himself.

Had they not posted a reward of one hundred thousand gold coins and the offer to marry their daughter for a fragrant passage of wind?

Yes, they had. He was in the right place. Could the young gentleman now . . . er . . . deliver the goods?

Jinmu nodded his head. He turned to Merchant Zhao and painfully raised his two clenched hands in the traditional greeting. He then very gingerly turned around so that his back faced the ill man. He next pulled up his upper garment and bent over, thereupon letting loose the loudest, most window-rattling flatulent outburst in the history of the human race. It seemed to go on forever but must have lasted but a score of seconds or so.

The entire room was instantly bathed in the most wondrous scent, a scent more fragrant than a thousand field of jasmine blossoms or any other redolent flower, for that matter.

Then, it happened.

Merchant Zhao instantly sat up in bed, unaided. He smiled and stretched his arms and continued to breathe in the aroma.

"I . . . I feel wonderful!" he cried. "Yes, I truly feel wonderful!"

Not only that, he no longer saw the demons--in the day or night.

He had Jinmu sit beside him.

"You, young man, get the reward, the full reward!" he told Jinmu.

He made sure the young man received his money and also set the date of the wedding, three days later.

With a smile, Merchant Zhao watched the young man leave. He, Zhao, made a pledge to himself--he would no longer be a miserable skinflint. From that day forward, he successfully lived up to that pledge.

Once married, the first thing Jinmu did with the money was to build a grander tomb, a shrine, for the ox.

That Jinmu was now fabulously wealthy and married to the most beautiful young woman in the region had not escaped the attention of his older brother Shuihuo. He had heard about it while sitting drunk in a tavern, drinking up the proceeds from the sale of his house and failed farm.

Jinmu discovered what had happened to his older brother and felt compassion for him, giving him thirty thousand gold coins and telling him to turn a new leaf.

With tears flowing, Shuihuo bowed before his younger brother and accepted the money; more importantly he accepted his younger brother's advice as well. He became a new man, a better man, the kind of man his younger brother was, with or without riches.

Notes

from Taiwan minjian gushi jingxuan, Huang Deshi, ed. Taipei: Qingwen Publishing, 1981; pp. 12-24.

In another version of this story, the source of which I can't remember, the older brother suffers a very serious comeuppance at the conclusion. Discovering his younger brother's new wealth and marriage to the lovely Miss Zhao, he asks him how he did it. "Very simple," responds Jinmu. "I ate lots and lots of meat--mountains of it, and then advertised my 'sweet gas' for sale. Try it!" Arrogant and foolish Shuiho then begins consuming incredible amounts of meat, to the point where he does the unthinkable: he even butchers his own ox or water buffalo and eats it as well. He advertises his "wares," finds a wealthy buyer, passes wind in front of the face of this powerful individual and then is severely beaten within an inch of his life.

The brothers' names are the basic Chinese elements: Shuihuo (water & fire) and Jinmu (gold & wood), stressing their generic identity.

The Chinese title is "Mai Xiangpi," or "Selling Fragrant Broken Wind." This story or versions of it are apparently known throughout China. In A Type Index of Chinese Folktales (Folklore Fellows Communication 223; Helsinki, 1978, pp. 89-90), Ting Nai-tung labels this as 503m, "Selling Sweet Gas." For a similar Cantonese tale, "The Bamboo Grove of the Loyal Dog," see 6/26/07. Motifs: B580, "Animal helps human to wealth"; Q51, "Kindness to animal rewarded."

Some Taiwanese Folk Beliefs

2011-09-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

The following items come from a couple of sources and may reflect certain superstitions, taboos, and traditions that stem from bits and pieces of long-forgotten and discarded legend and myth.

1. Peaches of the Immortals & Celestial Dew
Peaches of the immortals exist up in the heavens, it is said, and that if a mortal is able to eat one he or she can live forever without aging. Celestial dew, likewise up in the heavens, can allow a person, if he or she bathes in it, to achieve unparalleled wisdom.

2. Tiangou--"Heavenly Hound"
The sky dog, Tiangou, is responsible for both solar and lunar eclipses. These occur whenever the heavenly hound bites a chunk out of, respectively, the sun and the moon.

3. The Golden Bird
The sun itself is nothing but a huge golden bird with three legs.

4. The Sun's Birthday & the Sun's Hideous Face

The sun has its birthday on the nineteenth day of the third month, according to the traditional Chinese (lunar) calendar. Alas, the sun is so ugly that in order to hide its face from the rest of us, it is forced to shower our eyes with blinding rays, causing us to look away and not to see its horrible visage.

5. When the Sun & the Moon Are Ill

Solar eclipses occur when the sun is sick; in like manner, a lunar eclipse takes place when the moon is not well. The sun willingly allows itself to become ill so that the human race as a whole does not. Therefore, during a solar eclipse, people pray for the well-being and swift recovery of the kind, beneficent sun. The moon's illness is caused by a demon connected to the Peach Blossom Girl. Thus, during a lunar eclipse, people bang gongs to drive away the noxious being and to restore the moon to health.

6. Don't Count the Stars!
Counting the stars in the sky is a very bad idea. At the very least, it can cause scabies. There are, of course, an infinite number of stars above, and if one insists on wasting valuable time to count all the stars, even if one disregards the threat of scabies, the outcome could lead to death.

7. Respecting the Moon
Another bad idea is pointing a finger at the moon and scolding or cursing it. This could cause the moon to send down its "lunar knife" to snip off the offender's earlobes.

8. Red (or Bare) Dog Day
This is the third day of the lunar calendar new year. On this day, we should not engage in activities outdoors or host guests. "Red" or "bare" (the classical character for "red" or the modern character for "naked," [Mandarin: chi; Taiwanese/Hokkien: chhiah]) is also part of the Taiwanese/Hokkien compound for "poverty,"san-chhiah.

9. Some Lucky Dream Symbols
to enter a great hall . . . a sign of impending wealth and ennoblement
to see a great front door or large, imposing gate . . . a sign of impending wealth and ennoblement
to witness clouds billow in every direction . . . a sign of prosperous business dealings
to see surging river or ocean waters . . . a sign of great fortune
to butcher a hog . . . a sign of great fortune
to ride a dog and ascend into the heavens . . . a sign of future ennoblement
to sharpen a sword . . . a sign of great fortune
to be injured physically by another . . . a sign of luck
to witness heaven and earth united as one . . . a sign that one's deepest desire is about to come true
to travel through the mountains in the spring or summer . . . a sign of luck
to burn incense below the moon . . . a sign of great luck
to be attached to a snake . . . a sign of impending great inheritance

10. Some Unlucky Dream Symbols
to be killed by a dragon . . . a sign of great misfortune
to see a crab . . . a sign of future illness
to fall into a latrine or toilet and be unable to get out . . . a sign of great misfortune
to stand up in the midst of water . . . a sign of great misfortune
to see a monkey . . . a sign of future legal problems
to see oneself enter hell for thievery . . . a sign of great misfortune
to see a dragon enter a well . . . a sign of impending mental debility
to see an already dead person eating . . . a sign of great misfortune
to kill a turtle . . . a sign of impending death
to lose a water buffalo . . . a sign of impending death

11. Rain
Rain is actually ocean water breathed in by dragons and then expelled from the heavens. It may also be heavenly river water scattered to the earth below by a god.

12. Brides-to-be, Stay Away From Chicken Blood!
A young woman should not eat chicken blood just before her wedding lest she appear inexplicably red-faced.

Notes

from (1) Taiwan minjian gushi, Cang Dewu, ed.; Taipei: Yong'an Chubanshe, 1976; (2) Taiwan minsu, Wu Yingtao; Taipei: Zhongwen, 1984.

The Chinese celestial sky dog may be derived from a star deity. later becoming an entity that could ward off evil, especially the menace of fox goblins. However, in other traditions, it could preside over military disasters. It eventually evolved, in Japan, into the famed tengu, a malevolent creature of the mountain forests which was capable of abducting children. One species in Japan was purely bird-like, with the appearance of a huge malevolent crow. The other looked like yamabushi, or mountain hermit-monks, with a human appearance but also a very long nose.

The Peach Blossom Girl is a celestial servant girl and immortal in her own right, appearing with legendary Zhou Gong (the Duke of Zhou) in many legends and opera stories. She is noted for her ability with magic.

Counting, pointing at or otherwise disparaging heavenly bodies such as the moon or a comet is not a taboo just in Chinese culture. A version of a North American Indian folktale, "The Star Husbands Tale," tells of two sisters who lie down in the tall grass one warm summer's night and look up at the stars, particularly a red star and a gray one. They jokingly suggest they would like to marry those stars. They fall asleep in the grass and wake up to find that they are now indeed up in the sky married to the stars, the younger one married to the red star and the older sister, to the gray star. If only they hadn't looked up, pointed at the stars and brazenly claimed to want to marry them . . .

"Dog Legs!" (Han)

2011-08-16T20:34:00.001-07:00

Long, long ago, there was a very remarkable little boy, a child genius, if you will, with the utterly strange name of Gui Guzi ("Ghost[ly] Millet" or "Unhusked rice").

What made him so amazing? At the age of three, he began to study medicine. By the age of five, he could cure people of their diseases.

Before long, people from far and near would come to him to seek a cure for whatever ailed them.
He was able to diagnose the symptoms, prescribe medicine, and perform surgery! Forget about playing with other children, hitting and catching balls, rolling in the grass, wrestling and just horsing around--his single activity was helping those who came to him in pain and misery.

Not far away, the local tyrant, the county magistrate, was in agony, his right leg covered with deep, sore ulcers. No one in his mansion could help him--not his family, staff, or any of the many doctors called in to take a look at his leg.

Then, somehow he heard of Gui Guzi.

He snapped his fingers and called for his head thug, officially, a magistrate's runner. "Fetch this child, this boy called Gui Guzi. Now!"

The runner located the boy, who, not surprisingly, was treating someone.

"All right, boy," said the thug, "let's go. His Honor, the county magistrate, needs your help."

"The county magistrate? I don't treat people like him, only people who cannot afford a doctor."

"Why, you impertinent little dog! Get up immediately and come with me! That's an order!"

"No."

The runner, the thug, immediately hit the boy several times and roughly pulled him to his feet.

"Then," said this brute, "I'll drag you back to the mansion!"

And so he did; he literally had to drag the boy back with him. Soon, Gui Guzi was standing before the county magistrate.

"Thank you for coming, boy," said the county magistrate. "Your fame precedes you. I need your help."

"Well," said Gui Guzi, rubbing the lump on his noggin, "since I'm now here, I'll help you."

"Good. That's the right attitude! Now, behold this . . ." The county magistrate rolled up his right pant leg, exposing the numerous ulcers all over his leg. "Cure me of this, boy, and I shall reward you with great riches."

"Hmm," said the boy, "I can surely help you, but the treatment is drastic."

"'Drastic'? What do you mean?"

"I shall need to cut your diseased leg off and replace it with someone else's leg, a healthier leg."

"Cut my leg off? Are you serious? You expect me to do my work while hobbling around on some stranger's leg? This better not be a joke!" The boy looked up at him, and he could see it was no joke. "Very well, very well." The county magistrate took a deep sigh and gritted his teeth. He turned to the henchman who had brought the boy. "You, go to the prison, secure a prisoner with a healthy right leg, and have the whole leg amputated!"

"No, Your Honor," said Gui Guzi, "that will not do. I need to judge whose leg you are to receive. Suppose a leg slightly shorter or longer were brought? Or, a leg with rougher skin? Such a leg wouldn't match. No, I need to select the leg for this procedure to be a success, and I need to do it soon."

"All right, boy, all right. Then, whose leg am I to receive?"

The boy turned to the runner standing loyally by the county magistrate and pointed at him.

"His!"

The runner turned white. "What?!" this thug cried. "My leg? My leg?"

"Yes, your leg," replied Gui Guzi. "When I was brought to this place, I had the opportunity to observe your right leg. It is just right."

The thug started breathing heavily and exuding rolling drops of sweat. He knew that the boy was doing this for revenge, but what could he, the mighty runner, the chief enforcer of the county magistrate's law in this district, do?

"Oh, not my leg! Please! I beg you!"

The runner turned to the county magistrate, hoping for some reconsideration, some mercy. The county magistrate turned to his runner and looked at him with the utmost coldness.

"You would deny me, the imperial magistrate for this county, a needed leg? You wretch . . ." Turning back to Gui Guzi, he said, "Cut his leg off."

The county magistrate's servant gave Gui Guzi a sharp vegetable-and-meat carving knife. Gui Guzi first cut off the diseased right leg of the county magistrate. Then he cut off the right leg of the runner, who was being held down and restrained by men stronger than he. Finally, Gui Guzi replaced the county magistrate's missing leg with the runner's now severed right leg. The new leg was attached to the stump. Within minutes, the county magistrate was up and around, walking about on his new right leg.

"Wonderful!" the county magistrate cried. "Simply wonderful! Just like new!"

And the runner? He lay on the floor, writhing in blinding pain, moaning the torment and the loss of his leg.

Gui Guzi, however, was not without compassion. He had the rear right leg of a dog amputated and attached it to the stump where the runner's right leg had been. The thug now had a right leg again, albeit a dog's, but he could still somewhat walk and get around.

For this reason, many Chinese today still refer to corrupt, petty officials, low-level hoodlums, and those who act as bullies under the guise of authority as "dog legs."

Notes

from Minjian gushi, Lu Yao, ed. N.P.: Hebei Shaonian Ertong Chubanshe, 2004; pp. 78-79.

The character for "ghost" (gui) used as someone's nickname can indicate his/her connection to the mystical, dark and occult. The location of the province from which this story comes remains, unfortunately, unidentified.

Motifs: cE782, "Limb successfully replaced"; E782.4.1, "Substituted leg"; cQ451.2.0.1, "Limb cut off as punishment."

The Quick-witted Bald Man (Kirghiz)

2011-08-05T13:00:00.000-07:00

There was once a not particularly good-looking man with a shiny, round, hairless head. What he lacked in appearance, however, he more than made up with keen wisdom. In fact, in time, he became well known for his judgment. When he was of age, he married a lovely young woman, and they lived happily.

Now the Khan of those parts was a tyrant whose words were absolute law. His son, the Prince, was an equally unsavory character who always got his way because his father was the local monarch. One day the Prince spied the bald man's wife and decided he would have her for himself.

One afternoon, he sought out the bald man's wife when her husband was at work. He pestered and pestered her, demanding here and threatening there, and she felt deep shame. He only left just before the bald man returned home. Tearfully, the wife explained to her husband what had just happened.

"All right, this is what you must do should he appear again," said the bald man. "Tell him, 'My husband is home. Return tomorrow evening because by then he shall be on a long trip.'"

Well, not surprisingly, the Prince did return, and the wife did exactly as she had been instructed.

"My man's here!" she whispered to the Prince. "Come back tomorrow night when he's away on caravan!"

"Done!" whispered the Prince back, smiling and rubbing his hands.

Later the next evening, the Prince returned as had been expected. Striding into the yurt without looking about, he reached out to embrace the young wife. However, from out of the shadows, the bald man pounced upon the Prince and throttled him on the spot.

"Husband!" cried the wife. "You killed him! You just killed the Prince! You know there's no justice in this land. We're done for . . ."

"I know what to do," he replied. "You may go to sleep if you like."

Shouldering the dead prince, the bald man then headed into the night. He made his way to the yurt of the daughter of the Ba'yi, the great landowner. She lived alone and had remained fiercely jealous of the bald man's wife. The bald man stood the corpse of the Prince up and left it leaning against the opening of the yurt.

The Ba'yi's daughter heard some commotion outside her yurt and awoke.

"Who is it?" she screeched.

"The Prince," answered the bald man, hiding nearby.

"What do you want?"

"I love you!"

"Oh!" she fumed. "You disgusting, shameless creature! Be gone!"

"Shut up! I'm the Khan's son, and all I have to do is snap my fingers and your head will be on a platter. Now let me in!"

"If I want to marry," she responded, "my father will go through a matchmaker. I'm not interested in some chicken-and-dog thief who shows up at midnight!"

"Don't flatter yourself. I'm away from my yurt and too tired to go back to my wives. You'll do in a pinch."

Enraged, she picked up a long dagger, stepped over to the opening flap of the yurt where the shape of someone leaning against the fabric could be seen, and plunged the knife into the figure, the already dead Prince propped up there. When she opened the flaps of the yurt and saw what she had done, she ran in a panic to her father, the Ba'yi.

The Ba'yi heard about how the Prince had grossly insulted his daughter and could find no grounds on which to punish her for her act. Yet, she had just apparently murdered the Khan's son!

"Don't worry," he told her. I know someone who can help us." He then went to the yurt of the bald man, who was fast asleep.

"It is said that when one's father is dead, the dead man's friend becomes his father," said the anxious landowner to the bald man. "In truth, your late father was my very best friend. Son, on this night I need your help!"

"Speak, Ba'yi, and I shall do what I can," said the bald man.

The Ba'yi told the bald man everything. "I don't want to die!" he then added.

"Fear not," the bald man replied. "Now listen: what I am about to do is no small thing. It shall be very dangerous for me. How do you intend to reward me?"

"If I don't give you enough gold to fill a horse's head, may my own head roll under the blue sky!" answered the Ba'yi.

"Gold would be acceptable," said the bald man.

"I promise," said the Ba'yi. "If I break my promise, may heaven and earth punish me!"

"So be it," said the bald man, who then went to the yurt of the Ba'yi's daughter to retrieve the corpse of the dead Prince. Once again shouldering the dead Prince, the bald man headed into the darkness, this time on the road to the Khan's treasury.

He stealthily approached the great walls of the treasury. During the changing of the guard, he stuffed the dead Prince through an opening and allowed the body to drop to the ground with a loud clump. The bald man then scurried back to his yurt as fast as his legs could carry him. Naturally the guards had heard the noise and turned their direction to the intruder. They shot dozens of arrows at the dark figure lying on the ground below. The guards then rushed over to see who the brazen prowler was. When they saw the Prince's face, they were stunned, the breath knocked out of each one of them.

By and by they recovered from their shock. One of them had the sense to say, "Quick! We must act now. One of us must head over to that bald fellow and ask him for help. He'll know what to do!"

And so one of them did go there. Soon the bald man himself had arrived back at the treasury compound.

"How may I be of service?" asked the bald man.

The frightened guards immediately told him that the Prince himself had raided the treasury's forbidden compound and had been shot on sight.

"Help us, please!" the guards begged the bald man.

"Hmm, . . . ," said the bald man. "This is going to be tricky and personally very dangerous for me. If I help you, what will you do for me?"

"We'll serve you till the end of our days!" one said.

"Ha! Don't make me laugh. Here's what I want: as much gold as will fill the empty head of a horse."

The guards looked at each other.

"Come, now," said the bald man. "We are standing inside a treasury, are we not?"

What could the guards do? They agreed. The bald man told them to leave the Prince's body where it lay. He then left. Meanwhile, the guards then took out as much gold as would fill a horse's head and buried it in a spot designated by the bald man.

Early that morning, the bald man strode into the Khan's palace and requested an audience with the Khan. The Khan was already upon his throne that morning and curtly bade the the bald man to enter.

The bald man removed his battered hat and bowed before the Khan.

"Hurry up and state your concern," said the Khan. "I don't have all day for you."

"Great Khan, forgive my intrusion," said the bald man. "I am merely here as a loyal subject to gather a little information. Is it true that your word is law, that whatever you say can never be disregarded or ignored?"

"My words are rivets in steel," said the Khan. "There are no if's, but's, or and's when it comes to my orders. They are carried out as I have ordered, or else the offender's head is to be displayed. There are no exceptions. Now, bald man, why do you ask?"

"Great Khan, earlier this morning your guards killed a man who had dared to enter the treasury compound . . ."

"Have them bring the offender's head to me immediately!" thundered the Khan.

Shortly afterward, a guard brought in the head of the Prince. The Khan climbed down from his throne and saw that it was his very own son. And what could he say, he who had so many times said his orders here iron law? He ran out of the palace and all the way to the treasury, where the guards stood at attention, their knees knocking.

There on the ground lay the headless corpse of the Prince. The Khan thought back to one of his unbreakable edicts: Whoever enters the grounds of the treasury without permission is to be put to death on the spot! He gnashed his teeth, bowed his head and slowly walked back to his palace. No one was to be punished; his orders, after all, had been obeyed.

When it was wise to do so, the bald man dug up the rest of his gold. With his new riches, he constructed an even grander yurt for his wife. In time, he took the Ba'yi's daughter as his second wife, and she had to draw water, chop wood, and cook for the first wife.

The bald man thus ended his days respected by all, deeply satisfied and very happy.

Notes

from Xinjiang minjian gushiji, Chen Qinghao & Wang Qiugui, eds. pp. 35-42. (See 2/26/08 for full citation.)

There are folktales from around the world which present roguish, unattractive but virile and extremely resourceful male protagonists. Two come to mind: the Mongolian/Yugur "One-Inch Two-Inch Man" (see 12/30/07) and the Metis "Little-Man-With-Hair-All-Over," from American Indian Myths and Legends (Richard Erdoes & Alfonso Ortiz, eds; Pantheon, 1985, pp. 185-191). These heroes seem to have a lot in common with the roles traditionally accorded to dwarfs in folklore: their small stature suggests a budding libido as well as a closeness to the earth, making them crafty chthonic beings, appreciated for their innate wisdom derived from their contact with the secrets below the surface. The physical stature of the bald man in this story, however, is not emphasized; rather, his unattractiveness and sharp mind are stressed.

This folktale is a variation of the Indo-European series of tales "Disposing of the Corpse" and "Killing a Corpse" (AT 1536A and B and 1537).

"May We Have a Word With You?" -- a Taiwanese Legend From the Cold War

2011-06-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

This is a story I heard from my late friend Richard, a family friend and visitor from Taiwan. He told me this story as I drove him, his wife, my family and family friends from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in the summer of 1982 or 1983.

This story has been in my mind all these years. It takes place during a less happier time, a time when residents of Taiwan and China were not allowed to communicate with each other or visit each other, a time of great political and military tensions.

"The Chinese secret intelligence service is second to none," I remember hearing Richard say as he began his story. Only one thing--he didn't specify whose intelligence service, China's or Taiwan's. What follows is his story to the best of my memory.

It seems that Mr. Tom H. (pseudonym), a government civil servant in some department, applied to the appropriate government agency for permission to visit Hong Kong. Permission was granted, so off he went.

There was a slight detail he did not bother to tell the government agent responsible for looking into his trip: Tom was not intending to make Hong Kong the focal point of his trip. No, instead he was planning to land in Hong Kong and then cross the border into the People's Republic of China, where he would travel up to his home province, let's say Anhui, a place he had left as a child with relatives who had fled to Taiwan. There, in his hometown, he planned to reunite with his mother, whom he hadn't seen since 1948, nearly thirty years before.

He landed in Hong Kong. The next day he arrived at the Lok Ma Chau border station to cross over into China. He did so, without incident, his passport left unstamped. From Guangdong Province, he traveled by bus or train to Anhui Province and then onto his hometown, the place of his birth. He was joyfully reunited with his mother and other relatives.

During his visit, he was paid a visit by PRC security agents, who politely asked Tom to visit their office. Tom, of course, went immediately. He was ushered into a room and was asked to sit in front of a desk behind which sat a high-ranking security officer. Offered tea, Tom was given a brief interview.

He was asked his impression of modern China. Did everything look fine? Did the local people appear well fed, happy, prosperous? Was he enjoying himself? and so on.

Tom responded affirmatively and positively to everything he was asked. Yes, he was very impressed by the People's Republic, and, yes, everything appeared modern. The citizens, too, looked content, happy and well-fed.

Fine. Tom was allowed to return back to his mother's apartment. He continued to visit for a few more days and then returned to Hong Kong. He might have spent a day or two in Hong Kong, for after all, the then-British Crown Colony had been his ostensible destination. He'd be expected to bring back souvenirs of his stay.

He returned to Taipei and then back to his apartment.

A few days later, as he was getting ready to go to work in the morning, he heard a knock at the door. Opening the door, he came face-to-face with two polite strangers in business suits. One of them smiled and flashed his I.D. at Tom: Agent X, the National Security Bureau of the Republic of China.

"May we have a word with you at our office regarding your recent trip to Hong Kong?" the NSB agent asked. "Our car is waiting downstairs."

A million things must have run through Tom's head as he sat in the backseat of the car headed to NSB headquarters. Did they know he had gone to the Mainland, which at that time would have been a huge crime? Had he been sloppy in keeping his tracks clean? He had been careful not to bring back any memento from Anhui. So did they know?

Tom and his government escorts arrived at their destination. Tom was led into an office. Behind the desk sat a senior agent. On the desk was a tape recorder or tape deck. With a wave of the hand, the senior agent dismissed the pair that had brought Tom in.

"Now, may I ask where you went on your recent overseas vacation?" the senior agent asked.

"Hong Kong."

"Just Hong Kong? Not, perhaps, Macao as well?"

"No. Just Hong Kong."

"I see."

The senior agent smiled. He turned on the recorder. The tape then repeated the exact conversation Tom had had with the security officer in Anhui--the exact words and the same voices. Tom heard once again the questions asked of him while in China, and again he heard the replies he himself had given.

He slumped into his chair. What could he say? There was nothing he could say . . .

Tom was punished. He was very fortunately not sent to Green Island. Back in those martial-law days, his punishment could have been very heavy. Instead, he was given five to ten years restricted travel, prohibited from leaving Taiwan. I don't recall how his legal problems impacted his job as civil servant. Difficulties such as his tended to have a negative effect on job promotion and tenure.

Notes

Nowadays Chinese from both sides of the Straits can visit each other. Many Mainland visitors have flocked to Taiwan, and thousands of citizens of Taiwan live and work on the Mainland. Indeed, Richard's ex-wife herself now lives in Shanghai. Thus, this story is a relic of a bygone era.

Green Island, now a popular resort off the southeast coast of Taiwan, was once a penal colony housing those convicted of political offenses.

This story has some of the hallmarks we associate with urban legends: the lack of a firmly identified protagonist; "Tom," to the best of my recollection, was explained away as a "friend of a friend"; and a "comeuppance" effect, poetic justice or an otherwise very negative result for involving oneself in deception.

Two Legends About the Sea Goddess Mazu (Fujian & Taiwan)

2011-06-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

(1) Mazu and General Sees All and General Hears All

It is said that General Sees All and General Hears All had been brothers in life. The older brother, the one who could see vast distances, was named Gaoming; his brother, the one whose ears could pick up the faintest sounds for thousands of li, was named Gaojue.

These two brothers were generals, and in their final battle, they fought fiercely together before sacrificing their lives. Their spirits then floated up to Peach Blossom Mountain, where they became resident noxious demons that threatened any humans passing by.

When the goddess Mazu happened to travel through the area, the two demons appeared to her and demanded that she marry them. The goddess, of course, refused this outrageous command. Would she battle them? they asked. The loser would do the other's bidding; in this case, if Mazu lost, she would have to marry the pair. Mazu agreed and countered that if they, the demons, lost, they would become her attendants.

Both sides agreed to the terms and the duel was on!

With her matchless powers, Mazu trounced both fierce warrior demons in no time.

The demons had no choice but to keep their word. Thus, this how the green-faced demon Sees All and his red-faced brother Hears All came to be the goddess companions and servants!

Notes

from Shi Siwei, Taiwan minjian gushixuan, pp. 59-60.

Mazu (Matsu) ("Ancestress Mother") is the Southeastern Chinese patron goddess of mariners and is also known as the "Holy Mother of Heaven" or "the Heavenly Empress." According to Lin Daoyuan, who classifies Mazu as a "folk religion deity," there are from 500 to 600 temples and shrines on Taiwan alone dedicated to her (Taiwan minjian xinyang shenming datu, 294.). Perhaps the most famous Mazu temple on Taiwan is the one located in Pei-kang (Beigang), which attracts many pilgrims. The Taiwan-administered island chain, the Matsu Islands north of Taiwan, though written with a slightly different character, is named for her, and a temple on one of the islets is believed to house her tomb. It also remains a destination for pilgrims. The major focus of pilgrims, however, remains the goddess's birthplace, Meizhou, Fujian Province, where she was born in circa 960 A.D., right at the inauguration of the Song Dynasty. She was named "Mo" ("silent") or "Moniang" ("Silent maiden") because in the first month of life she did not utter a cry. When Lin Moniang reached her twenty-third year (Liao Yuwen, Taiwan shenhua, 73), she ascended into heaven from a cloud-encased mountain peak and into the company of welcoming celestial and immortal children. Other sources place her age at twenty eight (Cang Dewu, Taiwan minjian gushi, 133; Shi Siwei, Taiwan minjian gushixuan, 55), while Lin Daoyuan states she perished in a typhoon at the age of twenty seven (295). In any case, she would later appear on the seas during storms, aiding those in distress.

Another legend about Mazu, "The Story of Yishan Island," can be found at 3/28/08.

I didn't attempt to translate literally the Chinese names for "General Sees All" and "General Hears All"; instead, I freely translated their respective names (Qianliyan, "Eyes that see for a thousand li," and Shunfeng'er, "Ears that hear with the flow of the wind") to capture what the original names in Chinese imply. Their names have come down into modern parlance to mean "foresighted," "shrewd," or even "telepathic" (qianliyan) and "illuminated" or "enlightened" (shunfeng'er). Two excellent wooden images of the generals can be found inside Tainan's Heavenly Empress Palace (Daitian hougong), also known as the Tainan Mazu Temple; here, the Qianliyan statue is green-skinned, while Shunfeng'er is red, as are other statues of the generals elsewhere on Taiwan. (Shi Cuifeng reverses their colors; Taiwan minjian gushixuan, 53.) These two beings first come into history by appearing in the well-known Ming Dynasty epic Journey to the West, where they are depicted as the "eyes" and "ears" of the Jade Emperor, informing him of what is going on in the world (Chou Hongwei, Zhongguo minjian xinyan fengsu cidian, 127). Probably not coincidentally, "Gaoming" means "high brilliance," "great wisdom," and/or "profound brightness (of the eyes)," while "Gaojue" means "great perception" and/or "great sensitivity."

(2) Mazu's Iron Horse

By the time she was nineteen, Lin Moniang had already witnessed many maritime tragedies--lives being lost in sudden storms and typhoons--and each time she saw such an occurrence, it always broke her heart. Most heart-wrenching for her was a tsunami that suddenly hit Meizhou Island one autumn day, sweeping out to sea more than ten fishing boats and over a hundred souls.

Lin Moniang continued to mourn the disaster that had hit her close-knit community. She soon fell very ill as a result and became confined to her bed.

One day, some time between afternoon and early evening, Lin Moniang was sleeping when she was suddenly awoken by whinnying. That was odd, for there were no horses on this island of fishing families. Whenever the island residents had to travel, they took to their boats and headed for the mainland. Who on this island would have any use for a horse? Lin Moniang herself had never even beheld a real horse, only the ornamental majestic iron horse placed near the village during some long ago dynasty, the iron horse which continually stood under a banyan tree.

Lin Moniang went back to sleep.

Late the next afternoon, still very ill in bed, Lin Moniang again heard the telltale whinnying of what could only be a vigorous horse. Her curiosity had now gotten the better of her, prompting her to put her illness and weakness out of her mind.

The next day, at sundown, Lin Moniang was ready. She had lain on her bed for most of the day in her clothes, preparing to get up at a moment's notice. At the first sound of neighing, she climbed out of bed and made it to the door, which she opened.

She listened.

Yes, it must be a horse; there was no other creature on the island that could make such a sound. The noise seemed to be coming from the grove of banyan trees just beyond the village. As ill as she was, she crept outside and headed for the banyan trees, in particular the tree under which stood the iron horse.

There stood the iron horse, motionless, gleaming in the moonlight.

Lin Moniang approached the horse and stroked its neck and metal mane.

She stepped back--the horse was now warm flesh, covered by a downy fuzz! Its eyes blinked as it boldly snorted a ball of warm air, its tail, gently switching.

Startled but also happily excited, Lin Moniang put her arms around the horse's neck and climbed up onto its back. She gently patted the horse. It then gave off a loud neigh, raised its head and took off like a ray of light, heading for the boundless sea!

Lin Moniang discovered she could guide the horse's direction by pointing. When she folded her five fingers, the horse would come to a stop.

The future goddess Mazu, Lin Moniang, was jubilant and filled with hope, for with this horse, she could go to any friend or family member needing rescue at sea.

Dawn was approaching. Lin Moniang guided the iron horse back to its original spot beneath the banyan tree. She dismounted the steed and gently stroked its neck, allowing its soft flesh to return instantly to a metallic state.

From that day on, Lin Moniang patrolled the ocean off the coast of the island while riding the iron horse, rescuing all--be they fishermen, traders or passengers--who found themselves struggling to survive upon the unfriendly sea.

It is said that when Lin Moniang ascended into heaven, the iron horse went with her.

Notes

from Mazude chuanshuo (Legends about Mazu), Wang Wulong, ed.; Fuzhou: Haixia Wenyi Chubanshe, pp. 27-28.

Few animals in world myths and legends can compete with the horse in abundance of symbols. Depending on the culture, horses may represent frenzy, male vitality, the underworld (as psychopomps), nobility, the sun, and flowing water (e.g., springs). Ancient Chinese myth has its share of flying horses. The Shanhaijing, composed sometime between the end of the Period of Warring States (221 B.C.) and the beginning of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.), a compendium of fabulous beasts, lists a "heavenly horse," a winged creature with the head of a dog that would fly away upon being observed by people (Yuan Ke, Zhongguo shenhua chuanshuo cidian, 63).

Motifs: B41.2, "Flying horse"; cD1626.1, "Artificial flying horse."

Old Wu and the Eagle (Taiwan)

2011-05-31T18:07:00.000-07:00

Many years ago there lived an old gentleman at the foot of a mountain on central Taiwan. His name was Old Wu, and he was a widower. Having no children or relatives, he lived alone in a little grass hut. He made his living by getting up early every morning to gather firewood. He would then trade the firewood for rice. The rice, along with a the few odd vegetables he was able to grow, enabled him to continue his lonely life.

One day, on a nearby mountain, Old Wu spied an enormous withered tree. As the tree appeared to be an excellent source of firewood, he approached it, ax in hand. As he was about to swing his ax, a shadow suddenly flashed over him.

It was a magnificent eagle, which then glided into a large cavity in the tree.

Old Wu, aged but still hardy, climbed up onto a branch and peered into the hole. There, he saw the eagle feeding its young.

The mother eagle's eyes glistened as Old Wu looked at them.

Old Wu smiled and, addressing the eagles as if they understood words, said, "No, beautiful ones, you have nothing to fear from me. Though I could get a mountain of rice for the wood from this tree, I wouldn't deprive you of your home."

He climbed down and was on his way home.

Before he had taken ten steps, a familiar shadow separated him from the rays of the sun. The mother eagle landed on a stump by the path and faced Old Wu as he headed down the hill.

"Grandfather," spoke the eagle, "you are a kindhearted, merciful soul. Allow me to show my appreciation for sparing the home of my babies. Please climb onto my back and close your eyes."
The stunned old woodcutter did as the eagle had asked and closed his eyes. "Now hang on tightly and don't let go of me until I say so. We have a long distance to cover!"

They were off!

At last, after what must have seemed ages, they came back down to earth. When Old Wu opened his eyes, he discovered he was in a chilly, gray land of pebbles, rock, and boulders. There were rocks in all shapes, sizes, and colors. The stones were spread out as far as one could see.

Old Wu climbed off the eagle and now had to slap his arms to keep himself warm.

"Look under each rock, " said the eagle, "and you will find a ginseng root. Take as many roots as you can carry. Whenever you need to come back for more, all you need to do is to tell me, and I'll gladly bring you back."

Old Wu scurried over the rocks, lifting as many as he could and stuffing his clothes with the precious roots. He had heard that ginseng, a root shaped like a person, was extremely valuable as a tonic preparation.

Within a short time, Old Wu opened his own ginseng shop. He became the only person on steamy, tropical Taiwan to have an unlimited supply of the root, which must be grown in cooler, arid climates, like those of Siberia, Manchuria, and Korea. He thus prospered and ended his days in comfort and with abundant wealth.

Notes

by Cang Dewu, Taiwan minjian gushi (Taiwan folktales); Taipei: Yongang Chubanshe, 1976: pp. 32-24.

For two other stories about, respectively, riding upon eagles and ginseng, see "The Gray Eagle," 8/16/07, and "The Ginseng Boy," 1/11/08.

Motifs: B375.3.1, "Grateful eagle"; B552, "Man carried by bird"; cB562.1.3, "Bird shows man treasure"; B580, "Animal helps human to wealth"; Q51, "Kindness to animals rewarded."

The Bell of Chongfu Temple (Fujian)

2011-05-31T13:41:00.000-07:00

Which is more important--the cost of a gift or the spirit in which it was given? It might be very well said that there are instances in which a small gift, seemingly one without much value, may prove to be as worthy as a grand offering.

In the old trading city of Quanzhou stands Chongfu Temple, and it was here, several hundreds of years ago, a small incident took place.

The abbot of Chongfu Temple was a very famous man. He undertook a mission to raise money to purchase a huge bell for the temple, a bell for which all the monks and the residents of Quanzhou City could be proud. With begging bowl in hand, he personally set out to garner contributions from the faithful so that the temple could possess a bell which would be unlike any other. He left behind a little shami, a young novice monk, to look after the temple in his absence.

An old woman, her body gnarled like the branches of a banyan tree, hobbled into the temple courtyard one afternoon.

"Shifu, " she respectively addressed the young monk, "where is the abbot?"

"He is out gathering contributions for the huge bell we hope to cast for our temple" was the reply.

"Oh, but purchasing a bell is a good thing!" Her eyes brightened for a moment as she fumbled in her bag for something. "I too would like to make a small contribution. Unfortunately, I am now old and without much money. Please accept this small silver coin as a token of my devotion."

She then handed the young monk a silver coin.

The shami looked at the coin and smirked. "I don't think you fully realize the undertaking in which our abbot has involved himself. He is not soliciting for a mere toy bell. Our temple intends to purchase the biggest bell ever cast in our province. It's best for you to hold onto this coin. It certainly won't do us any good."

Three times did the woman attempt to donate her coin, and three times was she rebuffed. Finally, she took her coin and slowly made her way out of the temple courtyard. The shami then went about his business.

In time a sufficient amount of contributions was raised to pay for the casting of the huge bell. Strangely enough, once the bell had been cast, a defect was discovered. Along the rim of the bell, a gap about the size of a common coin was clearly seen. The inexplicable gap was then mended. However, when the bell was rung for the first time, the chunk that had filled the gap fell from the bell. No matter what steps were taken to repair the bell, the telltale gap remained. And so it remains to this day.

A coincidence, you say? The faithful feel that the gap was caused by the Goddess of Mercy, Guanyin, to teach the haughty shami a lesson: Don't ever look down upon someone's gift from the heart, no matter how humble it is.

Notes

from Legends and Riddles of Fujian by Zhi Nong; Taipei: the Oriental Cultural Service, 1956; pp. 91-93.

Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, is also known as Kuan-yin as well as her Japanese name, Kannon.

Memorial Day 2011

2011-05-30T19:02:00.000-07:00

Today is Memorial Day in the United States, a day to remember all our fallen military servicemen and women, a day similar to Remembrance Day in my former Canada and in the UK. In my blog posts, aside from Christmas and New Years greetings, I've never strayed away from Chinese folkore-related material, but today I shall.

I am very aware that my freedom to type this blog, to write my books, to profess my religion, to marry someone of a different faith (as I did), to travel, to speak my mind, to read whatever I want, and so on is all due to the sacrifices of men and women of the United States Armed Forces. I therefore would like to dedicate this posting to a man who would have been my "uncle" if he had survived World War Two. That man was Mr. Lyle Leonard Ellis.

Lyle Ellis was my father's schoolmate in Vancouver, Canada. He was an American, presumably the son of Americans who lived and worked in Canada. When Canada declared war on Germany, on September 10, 1939, Mr. Ellis did something so typically American--he enlisted in a war not his own to fight for the freedom of others unrelated to him. He could have very well instead returned to the U.S. My father enlisted alongside him, expecting, I guess, that they'd both serve in the same unit. As it turned out, my dad was sent to England, while Mr. Ellis was sent with other Canadians to bolster the British garrison in Hong Kong. It was there, in Hong Kong, that Mr. Ellis was captured by the invading Japanese and sent as a POW to Japan to work in the mines. He died there in captivity on March 17, 1944; the official cause: pneumonia. He is buried in the British Commonwealth POW cemetery in Yokohama. My dad fortunately returned home after the war. Years later, he told me, while I was still a boy, about Lyle Ellis.

I'd like very much for the world, at least for as many people as possible, to know that Lyle L. Ellis once lived in this world and that, like so many Americans, he made the ultimate sacrifice for people he didn't know and for whom he had not yet been required to fight.

Rest in peace, Uncle Lyle, and eternal thanks to you and all Americans who have given their lives for our nation.

Taiwan Folktales -- Now on Amazon

2011-05-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'm very pleased to announce that my translations of Taiwanese folktales, Taiwan Folktales, published by Booksfromtaiwan.com, is now available on Amazon UK & Amazon USA, as well as on other worldwide Amazon sites, as a Kindle e-book. Please take a look at publisher Richard Foster's Booksfromtaiwan.com and his Barking-deer.com. At both sites you can find all kinds of interesting things! Fred H. Lobb

Mulian Rescues His Mother -- An Ancient Indo-Buddhist Myth From China

2011-05-19T15:21:00.001-07:00

In ancient times, in the holy city of Wangshe Cheng, there was a Brahman, a son of a high official, a man named Mulian. He was an original follower and disciple of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, and he was renowned for his ability to detect and to communicate with those now in the other realm. Accordingly, he was regarded as the foremost sensitive, medium or spiritualist among all of the Buddha's disciples.

Mulian had for many years "gone out"; that is to say, he had renounced the world, undergone the meditations and exercises required of ascetics, and traveled as a holy man, preaching the doctrine of the Buddha, returning periodically to receive instructions from the Buddha but always on the road far from home.

Now one day the Buddha happened to lecture on the Four Objects of Gratitude, the first precept being filial piety. Mulian attended this lecture and was so moved by the Buddha's words that he desired to return home to see his mother once again.

The day came when he finally arrived back in his hometown but only to discover his mother had already died. How he had planned to dote on her, to see to her every needs--and now she was gone! And how regretful he now was!

Mulian then called upon his abilities as a medium to reach his mother now in the other world, to see her in her new existence.

To his shock, he discovered his mother had sunk to the hell of hungry ghosts and was now undergoing great torment there.

He could see her and was within reach of her. Mulian looked closely at his mother. Besides her stomach's being enlarged extended like a great drum, her neck itself was as thin as a needle.

He cried great tears and held out his rice bowl containing leftover rice to her. Before she could even eat one grain, though, the rice before his eyes turned into a mass of flames. Such is the torment hungry ghosts endure--drifting, with their stomachs extended due to starvation and their threadlike throats connecting their heads to their bodies, they are unable to eat a morsel of anything, for all offered to them turns to fire.

There was nothing Mulian could further do at that moment. He was, however, resolved to save his mother from this horrible existence.

He sought out the Buddha.

"Venerable Lord," he said, addressing the Buddha, "my mother is experiencing unbelievable suffering! Please let her be released through your mercy!"

"Mulian," replied the Buddha, "your mother's sins in her past life were too great. There is nothing no individual, you included, can do. However, there is hope of salvation through the power of the Sangha. Only with that power can your mother be saved.

"So, Mulian," continued the Buddha, "on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, make an offering of one hundred different meals for the community of monks. Doing so, you will not only save your mother but all the other hungry ghosts gathered as well from the torments of hell. Seven past generations of parents, grandparents and ancestors will be blessed by your gesture, and your offerings will earn great merit."

Mulian followed the Buddha's instructions, preparing a hundred dishes of food on the fifteenth day of the seventh month for the community of monks, including those from far and near. The monks, in turn, commenced praying, entered into meditation, and then received the offerings.

Thus was Mulian's mother saved from hell.

This was the origin of what is called Pudu, "the ferrying of souls."

The Chinese Pudu, the Feast of Souls, is known as Yulanpen, or Ullambana. The tradition started in China when Emperor Wu of Liang (464-549 A.D.) entered a temple and inaugurated the Feast based on Indian traditions. He too provided a feast of many foods, each in a bowl, allowing seven generations of souls to leave behind the existence of hungry ghost in hell.

Sadly, today in Taiwan the tradition has lost its original mission in providing donations and relief and venerating ancestors. Instead, it has regressed to that of being a mere raucous and wasteful festival.

Notes

from Fojiao gushiji (An anthology of Buddhist stories); Taiwan Fojiao Bianji Weiyuanhui, ed.; Taipei: Fojiao Chubanshe, 1986; pp. 90-92.

The very last paragraph contains the editorial sentiments of the original Chinese text.

Mulian is the sinicized form of Maudgalyayana. Wangshe Cheng is the historical ancient city of Rajagrha, Rajgir, or Rajagaha, located in Bihar, Northeast India. The Four Objects of Gratitude are family (filial piety), all sentient beings, one's homeland, and the Triratna, or the Three Jewels of Buddhism (the Buddha; the Sangha, or Buddhist monastic community; and the Dharma, or the Law). The non-Chinese term Yulanpen is the Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit Ullambana, which means "hanging upside" or "[im]pending," perhaps reflective of the continual fate of hungry ghosts.

The story is very important historically. Now with the Buddha's own lecturing on filial piety and his encouragement of Mulian's mission to rescue his mother, Buddhism in China began to take a different course from that of Indian Buddhism. Chinese Buddhism, with the Buddha's apparent blessings, began emphasizing the ancient, pre-Buddhist Chinese concern with filial piety. The supposed abandonment of earthly ties with which Indian Buddhism has been popularly associated was now played down. Most important, perhaps, are the Buddha's words to Mulian regarding the need for a unified response to relieving the sad souls in hell, that one cannot go about providing such relief alone. His words, in effect, inaugurated the codified approach of making large offerings to aid those in hell. In his masterful book on Yulanpen (The Ghost Festival in Medieval China; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), Stephen Teiser points out that a growing number of scholars now discount the above stereotype of Indian Buddhism of being overly unconcerned with existing familial ties. He also writes that one scholar, Iwamoto Yutaka, suggests the origin of Ullambana might lie, not with the above circa sixth-century myth, but with the Greek myth of Dionysus's descent into the underworld to rescue his mother, Semele (23-24). Among most people in medieval China and probably among most Chinese in our time, Ullambana has long coalesced with the likewise ancient Taoist Zhongyuan so that today people tend not to differentiate between Buddhist and Taoist feasts for the dead (Teiser, 41).

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

2010-12-25T22:12:00.000-08:00

To all my readers and their loved ones, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Fred Lobb

Stories of Filial Children -- Series Four

2010-11-19T22:46:00.001-08:00

(1) Shaokang (Xia Dynasty)

Shaokang was the sixth monarch of the legendary Xia Dynasty (c. 2070-c. 1600 B.C.) and lived from from 2118 until 2058 B.C.

It was when his mother was pregnant with Shaokang that the emperor, Shaokang's father, was assassinated. Shaokang was thus born in exile in what is now Jining County, Shandong Province. Growing up, he was greatly influenced by his mother, the ex-empress, who instilled in him the need to restore the great Xia dynasty. In time, because the traitor Han Zhuo was on his trail, he had to flee even farther to the area of what is now known as Yongji County, Shandong. There, he was taken in by a friendly tribal king who offered to Shaokang his second daughter's hand in marriage. In addition, the king bestowed upon Shaokang a small fiefdom and a personal army of five hundred men, a pittance compared to what his father the emperor had had but still a beginning!

He was not a young man who mourned the past; instead, he took the resources he was given by his father-in-law and turned his own small fiefdom into a prosperous mini-state, one which did nothing but increase the prestige of the toppled Xia and developed within the people a deep sympathy for that fallen house's cause.

In time, Shaokang was to have his revenge.

In 2078 B.C., the usurping Han Zhuo regime fell prey to an insurrection. Shaokang contacted his father's loyal minister Count Mi and other leaders of the anti-Han movement. Shaokang amassed an army which in a crucial battle defeated the Han force but not before the traitor Han Zhuo was slain.

And thus did Shaokang, acting out of the greatest filial devotion to his parents, avenge his murdered father and restore the mighty Xia!

Notes

from Sanshiliuxiao, p. 14. (For full citation, see 4/17/09 for full citation.)

This is story #2 in the Wu Yanhuan edition.

(2) Gu Yanwu (Ming & Qing Dynasties)

At the tail end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing, there lived a man in Kunshan County, Jiangsu, named Gu Yanwu (1613-1682 A.D.), the second oldest of five boys. At the age of two, he was adopted by the widow of his father's younger brother. He remained devoted and filial to his adopted mother all her life.

When the Ming fell to the Qing (1644), his adopted mother took her life. In her final testament, she wrote, "Though I am a woman, I am still a recipient of the nation's grace and prefer to die with my nation, the Ming, than live without it. I will not live as a subject of foreign rulers and thus betray the Ming. Thus, I prefer to sink into the darkness of the underworld."

This message left a deep impact on Yanwu, one which he was to remember to the end of his days.

After the establishment of the Manchu Qing dynasty, he became a great scholar respected by many, both Ming loyalists and many among the Qing authorities. On more than one occasion, Qing agents approached him with blandishments and veiled threats in attempts to enlist him in the Qing cause. Each time with great bravery and ignoring the risks, he rebuffed these servants of the Qing.

That is how he lived up until his death--mindful of his adopted mother's dying words, filial and patriotic to the end.

Notes

from Sanshiliuxiao, p. 76 (See 4/17/09 for full citation.)

This is story #33 in the Wu Yanhuan edition.

(3) Ding Chunliang (Qing Dynasty)

Ding Chunliang (1813-1873) was born in Jinjiang, Fujian Province. When he was thirteen, he followed his father over to Taiwan, where in Lugang, his father set up a grocery store. There, he worked for his father diligently.

Not long after, however, his father had a stroke. He became blind and unable to move half of his body. Walking without assistance became impossible. Chunliang took over the management of the store and then, at night, he would help his father out of bed and outside to sit with him whenever there were evening opera performances.

The years passed but the elder Ding's condition did not improve. His appetite decreased; furthermore, Chunliang needed to continue helping him dispose of bodily wastes. He did so without complaint, even when his father often soiled his bed and blankets.

It came to the point where Chunliang spent each available moment by his father's bedside, sleeping on the floor, and always alert to the slightest sound or request his father might make. When such a sound or request was made, Chunliang would immediately get up and meet his father's every need.

This went on for more than ten years. Not once did Chunliang demonstrate any anger, annoyance or impatience.

When a fire in the vegetable garden threatened the house, Chunliang picked up his father and headed for the front door. The fire had already spread, with flames and smoke on both sides of Chunliang and his father. Chunliang stood in the doorway, holding his father in his arms, protecting his father from the fire. Fortunately, the fire was put out in time before either was killed.

When Chunliang was thirty one, his father passed away. Chunliang then observed the proper rites for his father.

Chunliang's long devotion to his father was not lost upon the local city fathers. A memorial stele detailing his acts of filial piety was erected. After Chunliang's own death, his named was inscribed in the shrine dedicated to filial youths.

Notes

from Sanshiliuxiao, p. 82 (See 4/17/09 for full citation.)

This is story #36 in the Wu Yanhuan edition.

The Fox Maiden (Manchu)

2010-10-28T21:28:00.000-07:00

There was a young woodcutter named Bayang'a who lived all by himself; he had to, for he was too poor to afford a wife. Anyway, he was out in the forest chopping wood one day when he heard a commotion behind some trees and bushes. He stepped over to take a look.

In a clearing a group of boys had captured a young fox and were finishing tying up its legs. The fox was a beautiful creature, with piercing and sparkling black eyes.

"Where did you boys get that fox?" asked Bayang'a.

"In that cave over there, " one of them answered, pointing to a cave just beyond the clearing.

"And what do you plan to do with it?"

"Skin it!" replied another. "Then we'll sell the fur as lining for a jacket!"

Bayang'a looked the fox over. He shook his head. "Yes, maybe when it's bigger, but it's still too small. Killing it now would really be a waste, a shame. How about if I buy it from you?"

The boys agreed, and Bayang'a paid them the little money he had on himself. The boys ran off were their "riches," and Bayang'a carried the fox to the mouth of the cave, were he untied the creature's legs.

"All right, there you go," he said. "Go back into your cave and find your parents!" The fox darted back inside. "And make sure you don't go carelessly running around in these parts!"

The fox's old father cried tears of joy to be reunited with his daughter. "I thought I'd never see you again!" he said, embracing her. "What happened?"

The daughter fox explained how a kindhearted woodcutter had arrived in just in time and bought her from the boys who had intended to skin her for her fur.

"Then this is what you must do," said the father. "You must help him. You must reward him. We foxes always repay a kindness, so the next time you see him, you must find a way to repay him!"

The daughter fox agreed. She had found Bayang'a not only tenderhearted but also rather handsome. She decided she would repay him with the magic known to all foxes.

So, not long after that, the daughter fox left the cave and, seeing Bayang'a off in the distance, chopping wood, turned herself into a mortal, a beautiful girl with alabaster skin and long, black hair like shimmering silk. She approached Bayang'a.

"Hello, there, Brother," she said.

Bayang'a stopped what he was doing. "Hello to you."

"Why are you chopping all this wood?"

"I sell what I can and burn the rest for myself."

"And you use that which you burn to cook for yourself?"

"If I don't cook for myself, no one else will!"

"Is there no one else in your life, Brother?"

"No one else. Just myself."

"Well, I too, as a person," she said slyly, "have no one else in my life, either. I wouldn't mind being married to one such as yourself!"

Bayang'a's face turned a deep red. He looked down for a few seconds. Then, he looked up and asked, "You'd be happy married to a poor person such as myself?"

" 'Poor'! Ha! What's being 'poor'? I have two hands; I am not afraid to roll my sleeves up and get my hands dirty! You and I'd always have food to eat!"

Well, the long and short of it was they did indeed marry each other!

Now married to Bayang'a, the fox girl did not remain idle. As soon as she was married, she sat in Bayang'a's small home and embroidered purses and pouches. She didn't stop until she had beautifully embroidered ninety-nine of them.

These were no ordinary designs!

The embroidered birds actually seemed to fly; the deer, if you didn't blink, appeared to prance and to run; the swaying tall grass, if you sniffed, exuded a fragrant redolence; and the fish, you'd swear, leaped right out of the water and back into the brine.

It took her five days to do the job. Once completed with the embroidering, she turned the bags over to her husband.

"Bayang'a," she said, "take these to the market to sell. Take this extra large bag and display it outside the stall. It will get the attention of the crowd for sure! One more thing: Make sure you absolutely do not tell anyone who had embroidered them!"

"Yes, my wife."

Bayang'a, shouldering a pole to carry two large sacks containing the ninety-nine bags, went to the town market. It happened to be some festive day, so the market was bustling with people from near and far. There were stalls everywhere--those selling huge red dates, sugar, fabrics of every kind, glutinous rice cakes wrapped in leaves, and so on. Each vendor pitched his or her wares with nearly ear-splitting inducements to the passersby. "The melon seller insisted his melons were sweet; the flower seller claimed his flowers were fragrant; the pickle seller swore his pickles were sour," as the old saying goes.

Bayang'a, totally unversed in the way of selling a product, chose an out-of-the-way spot to set up his stall. Luckily for him, the sheer fragrance of the pouches and purses, especially the rather large one displayed on a pole by his stall, quickly attracted people his way. Soon, he was doing a very brisk business.

"Unbelievable!" one customer exclaimed, holding up the pouch he had bought, examining it from every angle. "I'll tell you this--not even a celestial goddess could embroider like this!"

Before long all the purses and pouches had been sold--all but one, the large sample purse. And it was this purse that caught the attention of the local garrison commander, an officer called Liu Shi San.

"Bayang'a!" he said, coming up to the stall, looking over the large purse. "Who on earth did this embroidery?"

"Oh . . . just somebody . . ."

"Come, come now! Who did this amazing work? a fairy?"

"Just . . . just . . . somebody I know . . . "

"Bayang'a, I'm asking you a direct question. Allow me to ask you again. Who did this work?"

"A . . . relative."

" 'A relative.' Very well, Bayang'a. I wish to have some. Can you have your relative embroider some more for me?"

"Certainly, Your Excellency."

"One more thing: You must take me to meet the embroiderer."

"Well . . . I don't know . . . "

"Baiyang'a, are you refusing my order? My patience with you is already wearing thin. Pack up your things and your earnings, and let's go."

Well, Baiyang'a was in a fix. He couldn't very well refuse a royal officer, so he dutifully led Commander Liu Shi San to his home, where, the officer came face-to-face with Baiyang'a's gorgeous bride. Her beautiful black eyes, however, glowered at the officer like angry burning coals.

Immediately, the commander was smitten by her beauty; in fact, he was just about shot through the heart. However, he was, above everything else, a loyal subject of his king. Wait until I tell His Majesty about this fetching woman! he thought. He was sure he'd be rewarded beyond his dreams when the king himself discovered this stunning young lady and added her to his collection of beauties.

Commander Liu Shi San stuttered and stammered. Without even saying how many pouches he wished to order, he abruptly grabbed one of the embroidered bags, turned around, leaped over the threshold bar, and fled to the royal palace. Once there, he told his sovereign about the girl with the milky-complexioned egg-shaped face, ruby lips, and shimmering dark eyes.

"Moreover, Your Majesty," added the commander, "she embroidered this pouch!" He produced the pouch, which, if you looked at it from the right angle, you could see darting deer, leaping fish, and churning water. You could also, of course, smell the sweetness of the swaying grasses.

"Who is this woman who is as lovely as a celestial maiden and who can also embroider thus?" asked the king.

"Bayang'a's wife, Your Majesty."

"Bring her to me at once!" thundered the king. "Drag her forcibly if you must but bring her here immediately!"

The fox girl knew as soon as the commander had left that their troubles were just beginning.

"Bayang'a, act quickly. That man will be back to take me to the palace--"

"I shall never let anyone separate us!" Bayang'a cried, embracing her.

She pushed him away and said, "No, act quickly, I said! We have no time to lose! Go up the mountain and strip away bark from yellow bi trees. Bring lots of the bark back to me right away!"

Without a further word, Bayang'a quickly headed up the mountain. He came back as fast as he could with a sack full of yellow bi bark. His wife took the bark, crushed it in a tub, added some water, stirred the ingredients and made a paste. She then applied the paste to her face and the rest of her body.

"How do I look?" she asked Bayang'a.

"You . . . you look very sick . . . as if you had jaundice!"

Before long, the commander, as expected, showed up with some of his men. Without any resistance, the fox girl allowed him to escort her to the king's palace. She strode into the king's chamber, without kneeling or even so much as a lowering of her head.

"The wife of Bayang'a reports to His Majesty!" she said to the astonished king.

Commander Liu Shi San looked at the king. He had imagined his king would be ecstatic to have such a rare beauty before his eyes. Instead, the monarch looked both displeased and disgusted.

"Take her away!" the king cried. "Send her to the kitchen and have her boil water! Filthy-looking, ill-bred creature!"

"Your Majesty, I must report something to you," said the fox girl, turning her head back to the king as she was led towards the royal kitchen. The king looked at her. "Just recently I became ill. I'm very ill right now, as a matter of fact. Please don't blame me before I die for infecting your kitchen staff and anyone in the royal household!"

"Get her out of here before I fall ill!" screamed the king, attempting to pull up his shirt up with one hand to cover his face and pinching his nose with fingers from the other hand. "Turn her out at once! Go! Go! Go!"

The fox girl was escorted to the outer gates of the palace. Once beyond the threshold of the palace gate, she had the heavy gates slammed in her face. She smiled, shrugged and trudged back home.

Inside the palace, the king slowly turned to the commander. "You brought that filthy, diseased woman in here! Guards! Guards! Take the ex-commander to the chopping block this instance!"

Once back home, the fox girl and Bayang'a decided to flee the area, which they did!

Notes

from Minjian gushi, pp. 182-185. (See 3/26/08 for complete citation.)

This is yet another version from the worldwide supernatural wife cycle of tales. Other examples can be found at 12/21/07 and 1/23/08. In the story the fox wife never reveals her true identity to her husband and presumably remains in human form for evermore. Commander Liu Shi San's name simply means "sixty-three." Like many characters from Chinese and Indo-European folktales, he behaves like a clueless automaton, allowing a dangerously ill-appearing woman to approach his king. I have not been able to locate the identity of the bi tree. Motifs: B601.14, "Marriage to fox in human form"; D313.1, "Fox transformed to human"; J242.3, "Fox masks as beauty."

The Hunter Hailibu (Mongol)

2010-09-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

In days past there lived a mighty hunter, Hailibu. Like many great hunters, he sought game not merely to take a life but to feed himself and those in the area who could no longer hunt for themselves. And like many great hunters, he knew as well when not to take a life. In all the mountain and forest villages he passed, he was welcomed, for everyone knew him to be generous to a fault and a straight talker, a man who did, not one who just spoke of doing.

One day he was out hunting in the heart of the forest when he came upon a tree that grew on the peak of a steep hill. On one of the top branches of that tree, a little white snake was curled up, apparently very comfortably, and seemingly fast asleep.

Hailibu mused to himself how content that snake looked, as content as a human taking a nap on a hot day during a break in work.

He took a wide detour around the tree so as not to disturb the snake.

Suddenly he noticed a gray shadow in the sky. Down swooped a stork and immediately snatched the little snake up in its talons!

"Help! Save me!" cried the little white snake.

"Fear not, little friend!" replied Hailibu, who swiftly took out an arrow and aim it at the stork, which was rapidly ascending into the sky. Hailibu's arrow was likewise swift. It nicked the stork, which dropped the snake, and then flew beyond the treetops as fast as its wings could carry it.

Hailibu reached the spot where the snake had landed.

"You're safe now, little one," he said to the serpent as it looked up at him. "Go back home to your mother and father."

The snake nodded its head and slithered off.

The next day Hailibu found himself in the exact same area. There, underneath the tree upon which the little white snake had rested the day before, were now a whole host of snakes circling the little white snake. obviously guarding it. Hailibu found this strange and watched the snakes.

"My rescuer!" said the little white snake. "I was hoping you'd be here."

"Yes, well here I am . . . "

"You do not know this," continued the snake, "but I am the daughter of the Dragon King. He and my mother sent me back here today to see if you would return. They wish to thank you for saving my life yesterday. You are hereby invited to my home, the palace, to be exact, the gem storehouse of the palace!"

"I'd be honored."

"Once there, you will be rewarded. You will be offered anything in my father's gem storehouse. But listen carefully, hunter. Refuse whatever is in the storehouse. Instead, ask as a reward the gem my father always carries in his mouth!"

"Oh? May I ask why, Princess?"

"You are a hunter, are you not? Then you should be very interested in obtaining that gem. If you too carry that gem in your mouth, you shall be able to understand the language of every animal that crawls, walks, flies and swims!"

"How marvelous!"

"Yes, marvelous it is; however, please listen carefully. Whatever knowledge you obtain by listening to what animals say, you must keep it all to yourself. You must never divulge the knowledge of this secret to anyone, for if you do, you shall die a horrible death. You will, starting from the head, slowly turn to stone."

"I understand," said Hailibu. "I'll be careful."

"Let's be off, then . . . "

The little white snake led Hailibu down into a steep valley; the farther they went, the colder he felt. Finally, they reached the storehouse, a nondescript building far away, inaccessible, from the world of most humans.

"We are here, Hailibu," said the little white snake. "Now we are to wait for my parents to arrive."

By and by the Dragon King and Queen themselves slithered up to the little white snake and Hailibu.

"You are the young man who saved our daughter!" said the Dragon King. "For that the Queen and I are very grateful! Come with me inside the storehouse here and feel free to select any jewel or gem that you like!"

"Please forgive me for being so bold, Your Majesty," replied Hailibu. "What I would really like, if you don't mind, is that gem that is in your mouth right now!"

"The gem in my mouth?"

"Yes."

"You are sure that is all you want?"

"Yes."

"Very well."

The Dragon King reluctantly spat the gem into the palm of Hailibu's hand. What could he do? He was supposed to reward Hailibu. Hailibu thanked the King and Queen and excused himself to return to the world of people. The little white snake accompanied him to the border between her world and ours.

"Remember, Hailibu," said the little snake, "you may instantly understand what any animal within earshot says. Not only that, you may use that information to help yourself. Just make sure you don't tell anyone else about it or the secret of the gem! Otherwise, the consequence will not be pretty!"

Hailibu nodded, said goodbye to the snake, put the gem in his mouth and headed out into the forest.

From that day on, hunting became a very leisurely activity for him. No more would he have to lie in wait; no more would he have to approach an animal in stealth; no more would he have climb any trees, scale any cliffs or ensconce himself in scratchy bushes. Instead, he listened in to animals wherever he went and simply took several steps in a particular direction to find his prey.

One day he was out in the forest when he heard the chatter from some birds overhead.

"Come on!" cried one bird to the others. "Let's hurry and make sure the rest of the flock get the message!"

"You're sure about this?" cried another. "It means we'll all have to find a new home, start new nests over and--"

"Of course I'm sure! When have I ever been wrong? I'm telling you the coming flood will send a small ocean of water crashing down from the mountain tomorrow! You want to wait and see? Hurry! This time tomorrow this whole valley will be underwater, and so will all the people living here! Come on . . . "

This put Hailibu in a fix. To tell what he had overheard from the birds would spell his doom; not to tell, just to wait and see if the bird had exaggerated and then discover it had not, would mean the destruction of everyone in the nearby village . . .

He took the gem from his mouth and put it in his pouch.

"Prepare to flee!" he cried out, walking through the village. "Tomorrow an ocean of flood water will be coming down!"

Washerwomen put down their laundry; farmers stopped plowing their fields; children quit their games and their mothers rushed to pick them up. All stared at Hailibu.

"Come on! Gather your belongings! Tomorrow this whole area'll be underwater!"

"And how do you know this, Hailibu?" asked an old man.

"Believe me--it will happen." He started to weep, something no one had ever seen him do, ever. "If I died before you right this minute, would you believe me then?"

Everyone stared at him. Had the great hunter suddenly lost his mind?

"Hailibu," said the old man, "everyone in this village has known you for a very long time. All of us have always known you to be straight up the line. What you're saying now, though, makes you sound like a crazy man. How is it you know all this is going to happen tomorrow? I mean, confound it, if you are telling me to flee my own village, my ancestral home, to leave my home with all my possessions, I'm going to need to know more. Don't the rest of you agree?"

All the villagers who had just gathered into a circle vigorously nodded their heads.

Hailibu opened the pouch and extracted the small gem. He held it up for all to see. He then told the villagers everything about the gem--how he had obtained it, what powers it gave him, how he had overheard the flock of birds, with one bird in particular, and what it had said.

He concluded by saying, "I'm about to leave you for the next world. Let my death be the final evidence . . . "

He then turned to stone, right before their astonished eyes.

Everyone then scurried back to their homes, wrapped their possessions in blankets or bags, gathered up their children and elders, rounded up their animals and fled the village and the valley as fast as their legs could move.

Fleeing the village, they became aware of the thick black clouds that had formed overhead.

Early the next morning, the village was already empty when the first raindrops fell. Soon torrents of rain came down, loosening the rocks on the mountain top. A huge amount of water gushed and roared down the mountain, along with it, boulders, smashing the village huts and inundating the whole area with water that nearly reached the treetops.

The rain and flooding had stopped. When it was finally safe to return to the area, the villagers came back to survey the damage. The rock that had been the mighty hunter Hailibu was located; it had been carried by the floodwater and deposited atop a hill.

There, on the hill, generations of people continued to pay homage to Hailibu, making the rock a holy site. To this day, Hailibu's rock is still there.

Notes

from Jia & Sun, Zhongguo minjian gushixuan, Vol. 1, pp. 202-204. (For full citation, see 7/22/07.)

For similar stories of individuals being turned into stone, see the stories for 6/22/07 and 2/13/08. Motifs: A974, "Rock from transformation of people to stone"; C961.2, "Transformation to stone for breaking tabu"; D231, "Man transformed to stone"; W28, "Self sacrifice."

Weird & Eerie Stories From Old China

2010-08-21T00:35:00.000-07:00

Not ghost stories--I already have an ongoing series of such stories--but rather the first of what might hopefully be a collection of tales dealing with anomalies other than ghosts.

(1) Thirteen Cats

Imperial Censor Wang of Jiangning, Jiangsu, once had a concubine who, when she was seventy years of age, had thirteen cats. She loved those cats and took care of them as if they were her own children. She gave each one a name, and whenever she called one by its name, it would immediately come to her. In the forty-sixth year of the Qianlong Emperor (A.D. 1781), this woman died. The thirteen cats sat around her casket morning, day and night, unceasingly moaning. When offered fish to eat, the cats continued to cry and refused to touch the food. On the third day after the old woman's death, the thirteen cats, still surrounding the casket, were all found dead.

Notes

from Zi bu yu (Matters the Master [Confucius] Did Not Discuss) by Yuan Mu (1716-1798); in
Lingyi guaitan, p. 172. (See 7/8/10 for full citation.)

Yuan Mu derived the title for his book from a statement by Confucius: "I do not discuss weird abilities or contemptible spirits." Confucius's words reflect the ultra-Confucian attitude of aloofness from the incorporeal world.

(2) The Daughter of Xiang Shui

There once was a man named Xiang Shui who lived in Henai (now in Henan Province). When he was living in Wu Xing Qun (?), his wife gave birth to a girl. When the girl was a toddler, she came down with an illness. While she was sick at home with nothing to do, this child came across a small knife and started playing with it. Her mother saw her holding a knife and went to take it from her. Doing so, the mother accidentally nicked her own hand. After this incident, the poor child, now very ill, died.

A year passed. Xiang's wife had now given birth to another girl.

When this girl was four years old, she suddenly said to her mother, " Whatever happened to that small knife?"

"What knife, my daughter?"

"You know, the small knife you you took from me, the one I cut you with . . . "

As one can imagine, the mother was dumbstruck. Neither she nor her husband had ever talked about the now deceased daughter's playing with a knife and accidentally cutting her mother's hand. She went to tell Xiang Shui.

"Well," said Xiang Shui, " where exactly is that knife? Do we still have it?"

"Ever since the day our first daughter left us," replied the wife, "I've not used that knife. It breaks my heart just to think of the knife, for it reminds me of her. I put the knife away."

"Do this. Find that knife and put it amongst a bunch of similar knives. See if our daughter can spot the one you think she was talking about."

The mother did exactly this--she placed a number of small knives, including the small knife in question, before her daughter. In no time the small child gleefully picked up the small knife her late sister had played with four years before, the same knife which had cut the mother's hand.

Notes

from Taiping guangji (The Comprehensive Records of Peace and Tranquility) by Li Fang (925-997 A.D.); in Lingyi guaitan, p. 101.

Throughout the world, down through the centuries and in many if not most cultures, there have been frequent reports of small children blurting out details of a supposed previous existence of which they could not have possibly known. For another story of reincarnation, see 6/14/10. The case of Shanta Devi and the research done by Dr. Ian Stevenson come to my mind after reading this story of suggested reincarnation from ancient China.

(3) Sometimes We Must Look to the Past

In the state of Pei (now Anhui Province), there lived a scholar and his wife. He and his wife had been blessed by their having triplets, boys. However, though each son was normal in every respect, none of them could enunciate normal speech. All they could do was to grunt unintelligible sounds.

By the time they reached the age of twenty, their condition remained the same. And so the three, along with their parents, were much disheartened. But what could they do?

Now one day, a well-meaning stranger happened to pass their house while the three boys and their father were out in the front. The stranger slowed down as he heard the garbled, incoherent mutterings of the three young brothers.

Turning to the embarrassed-looking father, the stranger asked, "What is this sound?"

"My sons. They are unable to speak."

"Oh?" asked the stranger. "Have you ever asked yourself if you had a role in why these fine young gentlemen should be unable to speak?"

The father looked at the stranger and seemed lost in thought for a long time. Finally, he replied, "When I was a boy, there was a swallow's nest just outside my bedroom window. In the nest were three young baby swallows. Their mother would fly over to the nest to feed each one. I can still remember seeing how each one would raise its beak and open it to receive the food.

"I was young, naughty and immature at the time. I took three short rose stems, with thorns and all, and climbed up to the nest. I then dangled a stem before each baby bird. When it opened its beak, I shoved the stem down its throat, killing it. I did this to each bird. How I regret doing that! "

The stranger nodded. "That's it" was all he said.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the three young men began conversing with each other for the first time in normal, articulate speech.

Thus, sometimes we must look to the past for an explanation to a current problem!

Notes

from Soushen ji by Gan Bao; in Lingyi guaitan; p. 10.

A Buddhist proverb teaches us that "if you wish to know why you are the way you are now, look to the past; if you wish to know how you shall be in the future, examine the way you are now." This karma may also reflect how the sins of the father, so to speak, can impact an otherwise blameless child.

May we all be so fortunate as to have well-meaning strangers enter our lives.

(4) The Secret of the Snake

There once was a scholar who had become an official. In some distant field, somewhere in the "two Guangs" (Guangdong and Guangxi provinces), he came across a huge peaceable snake, its girth nearly one chi (approx. 1/3 of a meter). He stood away, just observing it. It eventually crawled up a tree, and, to the amazement of the official, it began to devour all the leaves on the tree. Once all the leaves were gone, the circumference of the snake gradually but perceptibly grew smaller and smaller until at last the reptile had totally vanished!

A nearby local explained to him that the snake had probably eaten a whole deer earlier and was unable to digest the meal. So, in order to do so, it ate all the leaves in the tree.

The official decided to experiment. He picked as many leaves as he could and carried them back to his quarters. There, he kept the leaves, awaiting the perfect time to begin his research.

One night, when he felt particularly sated by food and drink, he decided he would do what the snake had done. He mashed the leaves with water, brewed a huge pot of soup with the ingredients, and drank all of it down.

The next day, when the official hadn't come down, his family members went up to look in on him. He was not in his bed. Someone pulled his bed cover back, revealing a collection of white bones and the rest, mostly tissue which had dissolved into water.

Notes

from Wen qi lu (Record of strange things heard) by Yu Ti (?); in Zhongguo qitan, pp. 19-19. (See 3/26/09 for complete citation.)

For another tale about a snake with a huge appetite, see 6/13/07.

(5) Fate

Long before he had ever made a name for himself, Zhang Jiazhen had time to kill one day and stopped by an old fortuneteller who had "set up shop" by a busy road. The old man consulted his various charts and devices and wrote up a number of different forecasts for Zhang, sealing each one in a separate envelope.

"Don't open them all up at once," the old man said. "They're numbered. Open each one in order just before you're given a new post or assignment." He then handed Zhang all the envelopes.

So each time Zhang was ready to leave a current post, he'd open an envelope to see what was in store just before the very next time he was posted or given an assignment. Amazingly, the old man's predictions were all completely accurate. Each sealed prediction foretold a post more prestigious than the current one.

Then came a glorious job assignment that had likewise been foretold: prefect of Dingzhou, Hebei Province! What office could be higher? Yet there was one envelope left. That was forgotten in his taking office in Dingzhou.

Not long after becoming prefect, Zhang Jiazhen came down with an illness. His family members became quite anxious and urged him to go see a physician.

"Ah, think nothing of it!" said Zhang. "I'm fine and going to stay fine. I have one yet envelope to open before I retire, don't you remember? Well, seeing as how you are all worried, I'll go ahead and open the envelope now, though it's a bit early to do so."

There, standing before his loved ones, he opened the final envelope. He took out the paper. Upon it was written just one character, "kong" (i.e., "empty," "blank," etc.).

He then knew that he was at the end of the road. He died shortly after.

Notes

from Dingming lu (Records of Determined Fates) by Zhao Zidong (?); in Zhongguo qitan, pp. 42-43.

Three Contemporary Chinese Fables

2010-08-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

(1) The Master Builder

A master builder had worked many years building houses for his employee, Mr. Li. He and his wife had talked about his retiring one day, so today he would notify Mr. Li that he would no longer be working for him or for anyone else, for that matter."

"Oh, Shifu (i.e., master, maestro), you can't be serious?" asked Mr. Li. "Is there any way I convince you to stay on, at least for one more project?"

"No, Mr. Li, my mind's made up. I've worked for you for many years, and, while I appreciate working for you and the good salary you've paid me, the time has come for me to retire. I now want to spend more time with my wife and grandchildren."

"Listen, I have just one more project coming up for you, and I really need your help! This house will be the biggest, grandest, most opulent house of all, built with only the finest redwood and marble. How could I possibly have it constructed with anyone else but you overseeing the job? Please, Shifu, don't desert me at this time!"

"Well . . . "

"No, I must really beg you to reconsider!"

The master builder sighed. "Well, all right . . . but just this one house and that's it!"

"Thank you, Shifu!"

The master builder went home to tell his wife that he would work on yet one more construction project for Mr. Li, a house which when completed would be a masterpiece.

"Oh, you foolish man!" his wife said. "You're such a walkover for others. Since you agreed, just quickly get the thing done."

"But it is to be built with the finest of materials . . . "

"Who cares! Just hurry up and build it!"

So the master builder got started on this new job which was to be his last, and, yes, he had his crew do a rather slapdash job. He was more interested in getting the job done than in doing the job well. The result--a house with many shortcomings, most of which were not immediately noticeable.

When the house was completed, Mr. Li showed up, bearing a piece of paper and some keys, which he thrust into the hands of the startled master builder.

"What's . . . all . . . this, Mr. Li?" the master builder asked.

"Surprise! These are the deed and keys to your house, Shifu! This is my gift to you and your wife upon your retirement and for your many, many years of exemplary work. May you live for many years in total comfort in this house you yourself have built!"

(2) Dogfight

A young hoodlum swaggered through a neighborhood with a large dog he had trained to be vicious. If he encountered anyone taking a dog for a walk, he'd challenge the other dog owner to let both their animals fight.

Of course one look at his snarling and snapping dog was enough to make others turn around with their own dogs and head quickly away.

So this young thug strutted through the neighborhood, acting as if he owned the place, intimidating others into keeping their dogs indoors.

Now one day he walked his dog over to a park on the edge of the neighborhood. There, he saw an old man and his dog up on a knoll, sitting under a tree. The dog under the tree was the ugliest, weirdest-looking mutt he had ever seen, with a very thick snout, surely no match for his own killer dog.

"Hey, you!" the young hoodlum cried.

The old man looked up.

"Yeah, you! Let your dog and mine fight and see which is tougher. I'll wager you my dog'll rip yours apart!"

"Let them fight, eh?"

"Yeah! C'mon!"

The old man scratched his scrawny beard. He looked at the young tough's dog, then at his own pet, and then back at the young man.

"Very well, if you want . . ."

He untied the leash from the collar of his dog as the young hoodlum did the same. Then the old man gently pushed his dog in the direction of the snarling dog now bounding up the knoll towards them.

The strange-looking dog and the hoodlum's dog crashed into each other.

It was all over in a matter of seconds.

It wasn't even close.

The young hoodlum's vicious dog had been shredded, ripped apart to its very bones. What remained of the poor dog lay in a sickening, bloody heap.

The hoodlum was shaken and dumbstruck. "Wha- . . . Wha- . . . What happened? Your dog . . . what kind of dog is that?"

The old man just shook his head as his animal came back to him and allowed itself to have its leash reattached to its collar. "I guess I can't blame you for not knowing, seeing as how I have his fur all shaved off. He's actually what you call a 'lion.' That might answer your question."

(3) Old Wang and Old Chen

Old Wang and old Chen were two neighbors in adjoining apartment units. Now the Wangs were a noisy lot, always quarreling late into the night, while the Chens were very quiet, with nary a peep ever coming from out of the walls.

None of this was lost on old Wang, who was very embarrassed at how noisily he and his wife argued. He desperately wanted to apologize to old Chen but could never seem to find the chance.

One day he spotted old Chen waiting at the elevator. He jumped at the chance to make amends and rushed to join him while waiting for the elevator car to appear.

"Mr. Chen, my old friend, I really have to apologize for the way my wife and I argue! I know we must be very noisy and have probably kept you and Mrs. Chen up late on more than one occasion. We ought to be like you and Mrs. Chen--as quiet as the grass!"

"Don't worry about it, my friend," said old Chen. "All that arguing you and your wife do only proves one thing."

"What's that?"

"That you two are good people!"

"What?! Don't you mean that you and your wife are good people?"

"No, we're not good people; we're bad."

"Oh? How so?" Now Mr. Wang was mystified.

"Well," said Chen, "it's like this. What did you say the other day when your wife sat down on your reading glasses? 'What are you, woman, blind?'" Old Wang had to wince at that. "Then," continued Chen, "what did your wife say when you spilled tea all over the carpet? 'You clumsy old fool! Are your hands made of rubber?' Do you remember that?"

"Yes," said Wang, "of course I do."

"You must both be good people because each time you scold each other, which you both frequently do, you do so as the hero, while the other is the villain, the bad person!"

"Oh . . . "

"Now my wife and I, " continued Chen, sighing, "on the other hand must be bad! We're both constantly apologizing to each other for the slightest thing! And we do many, many bad things! Why, just this morning, my wife said she was sorry for accidentally shrinking my favorite shirt in the laundry! I quickly forgave her with a smile, of course. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I had to apologize because I had forgotten to bring in the laundry! Whew, I shudder when I think about how rotten my wife and I really are!"

"Ah . . . I see . . . "

"Oh," said Mr. Chen, "the elevator's finally here. Oh, my goodness! I'm awfully sorry! After you, please!"

Notes

Special thanks to my mentors and dear friends Sue Lau, Sally Zhang, and Joseph Tu for relating these examples of modern Chinese tales to me. For more examples of contemporary Chinese legends, this time, ghost stories, see 6/15/07.

Some More Proverbs From Shandong Province, the Home of Confucius

2010-07-15T23:08:00.000-07:00

Having reat riches depends on one's fate; having small riches depends on one's determination. (Not all will attain great wealth, for affluence, according to this particular saying, depends on one's fate, perhaps on one's previous existence. Mere survival, however, is open to all through hard work and perseverance.)

Just as the great river has flowing water and the little river has fish, a soup of fatty meat has fat. (There's a reason for everything.)

Thirty summers must pass before one really knows how high the heavens are and how deep the land is. (I have heard some friends from mainland China and Taiwan say that "the young aren't mature and the mature aren't young.")

The sky above needs a below, just as a maiden needs a man to marry--there's no way out of it. (Some things are predetermined by nature whether we like it or not.)

Count on the tough and hardy to come out of the countryside and the rich soil to support a harvest! (In other words, have faith! Let nature take its course.)

If you don't plant the bamboo this year, exactly when do you expect to get the shoots? ("Make hay while the sun is out.")

A mighty dragon might find it difficult to defeat a snake hiding low in the grass. (When you must fight, do so knowing exactly who, what and where your enemy is. Don't take anything for granted; don't be cocky. Is it not said that elephants panic at the sight of a mouse?)

When you reach the age of eighty-eight, you don't go around mocking the lame or the blind. (The future is unknown to all of us; thus, it is wrong to make fun of others in their present plight.)

To see whether one has finesse or not is as simple as seeing whether the brush wipes the table clean and whether the broom sweeps the floor clean. ("The proof is in the pudding.")

Don't demand that the dates on sale at the market come without pits. (Nothing's perfect.)

Just as a farm field fears an early fall, a person may fear an old age with poverty. (When we are younger, we need to take care of our later needs. The message here is reminiscent of that found in Aesop's "The Ant and the Grasshopper.")

Like the crow's laughing at the pig for being black. ("Like the kettle's calling the pot black.")

To eat someone else's flesh and then to complain that the meat is not tasty! (Said of those who are ungrateful.)

People can see with their own eyes what you have done with your money; without your money, you have only your promises of what you claim you shall do. ("Money talks." It is with money that much can be accomplished.)

Whose grove doesn't have at least one crooked tree? ("No one is perfect.")

Notes

from Zhongguorende suhua. (See 6/9/07 for full citation.) For more proverbs from Shandong, see 11/18/09.

The Waif of White Water -- Possibly the Oldest Recorded Han Chinese Folktale

2010-07-08T17:59:00.000-07:00

During the reign of Emperor An of the Jin Dynasty (396-419 A.D.), there lived an official named Xie Duan. When he was very young, he became orphaned after both parents had died. He had no relatives whatsoever, so all the neighbors pitched in to raise him and to guide him.

By the time he reached the age of eighteen, he was a very fine young man, honest and respectful to all and without any vices.

It was at this time he decided to leave the village of his birth and venture farther out into the world. His neighbors had been very much concerned about him and wanted to see him married to a nice young woman. Some had even conspired to introduce him to eligible young women, but, for whatever reason, most likely the lack of money, he remained unwed. And so he left the village to seek his fortunes elsewhere.

He ended up in another village where he worked farm fields.

One day while in the city, he picked up in the market a large river snail, the shell of which was as big as a three-sheng kettle. He found this to be a very curious object, and so he took it home and placed it in a tub of water under his window.

Every day Xie Duan got up early to work and came back late from the fields. And now lately he would come home to discover the same thing: his dining table would be set with several nice hot dishes and a soup. It was as if somebody lived with him, a wife, perhaps! Yet, no one else would be in the house when he returned home.

After this had happened on several occasions, he went to a neighbor to thank her for her kindness and thoughtfulness.

"Why are you thanking me?" asked the astonished neighbor. "I've never entered your hut while you were gone!"

What could Xie Duan do? He still suspected his neighbor--if not this one, perhaps another--was practicing an act of kindness. He still thanked her and left.

Again, for the next several nights, the same thing occurred--a delicious hot dinner awaiting him every night after he came home from work.

He went back to the woman he had thanked earlier. The nice young man he was--he must have been very embarrassed!

This time the woman laughed and said something very mysterious. "Xie Duan, stop teasing me with all your thanks! You know you are married and keep a wife inside your home! You have a wife, so why would I need to sneak into your home to cook you dinner every night?"

Now Xie Duan was completely mystified. Fine. He thanked the woman once more and went home. Now, what to do? He had a plan . . .

The next morning, he got up early with the crowing of the roosters. But then, he quietly returned home very early. He crept up to the fence around his home and peered over it, looking directly at his window.

He saw something that made the hair stand on his head: a very young and pretty woman rose from the tub and lit the oven.

Xie Duan rushed into his hut, startling the young woman. He looked into the tub; the snail shell was gone.

"Miss," asked Xie Duan, "from where do you come, and why do you prepare a dinner for me nightly?"

The young woman was clearly nonplussed, probably as much as Xie Duan. She gazed longingly for the tub of water under the windowsill, as if she wished she could escape into the water inside that tub. However, she couldn't.

"I am from the river, the White Water. The God of Heaven took pity on you for having to live all alone while being such a polite, decent and modest person. So I have been sent here to you to cook for you. I was to stay here with you for ten years to take care of all your meals. Ten years from now, you will be prosperous enough to have a wife. I would then be able to leave you. You were not supposed to see me, but now you have come in and seen who I really am.

"So now I must leave. You have seen me in my true form, and because of that I cannot remain here. Take heart, though. Your life will be better in the years to come. Though I must leave, I shall leave behind the empty snail shell. You may dry it and use it as a grain container and as a keepsake.

"Farewell . . ."

"Please stay," Xie Duan said.

The girl just shook her head.

She then stepped outside the hut and vanished into the wind.

Xie Duan created for her a small shrine in his home, where on each holy day, he would pray and provide incense and offerings for her.

Throughout the years, he improved his standard of living and, in time, became affluent. He was then able to afford a very nice bride and was thus married. Later, Xie Duan became county magistrate of Changyun County.

Eventually the little shrine to the Waif of White Water became a temple consecrated to her!

Notes

from Lingyi: guaitan (The Occult: Chats on Strange Things), Xiao Zhiguai, ed. Beijing: Xin Shijie, 2006; pp. 29-30. Originally from Gan Bao's Soushen ji.

For another variant of this story ("The River Snail Shell Girl") and background discussion of this story's position as being perhaps the oldest Han Chinese folktale, see 3/19/08.

One sheng is approximately one liter.

Compared to "The River Snail Shell Girl," this story is relatively spare with specifics. The province in which "Changyun County" is located is unidentified. However, a Baishui ("White Water") River exists in Southeastern Fujian, the setting for "The Snail Shell Girl." As in many folktales, the hero unwittingly violates a taboo, causing him to lose something, in this case the services of the Waif, when he observes her activities in his home. (Motif: F302.6., "Fairy mistress leaves man when he breaks tabu.") However, in general, he is rewarded. (D855.5., "Magic reward for good deeds.")

The Taoist "God of Heaven" is not to be confused with the Judaeo-Christian God, though the same name Shangdi is used by both Chinese Christians and Taoists for their respective deities. This Taoist god is actually one of the Three Emperors, legendary rulers later deified. He is often associated with the legendary emperor and culture hero, the sage Fuxi, the revealer of the Bagua (Pa-kua) and first instructor to show the people how to cook with fire and to catch fish with nets. The other two members of the threesome are the god-emperors Shennong and Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor. I cannot speak with authority about mainland China, but there are still temples dedicated to Fuxi on Taiwan today.

The Incarnations of General Bai Qi (Han)

2010-06-14T23:01:00.000-07:00

Bai Qi (d. 257 B.C.) was one of the ablest generals of the Qin kingdom during the Age of Warring States (475-221 B.C.). Having successfully occupied more than seventy enemy fortresses and cities, he was conferred with the title Prince of Wu An.

During his campaign against the Zhao kingdom, battling the army of Zhao general Zhao Kuo at Changping (today, in Shanxi Province), General Bai Qi emerged as victor after his forces circled the enemy, forcing them to surrender or to starve. As he had done on other occasions, he had nearly all the enemy prisoners, reputed to be more than 400,000 men, put to death. As can be imagined, this loss shattered the state of Zhao.

Years later, General Bai was ordered to finish off the remnants of Zhao but was defeated. When the Qin king ordered him to press on his attack on Zhao, General Bai feigned illness in order to avoid further battle. Enraged, the king of Qin revoked General Bai's princely title, delivered a sword to him and commanded him to kill himself with the blade.

Clutching the sword, General Bai Qi supposedly spoke these words: "Which evil act of mine offends heaven? At Changping, I had 400,000 Zhao prisoners killed! That's enough to warrant 10,000 deaths for myself!"

He then took his own life.

Now his own journey through several different incarnations would begin.

(1) Hungry Ghost

In the reign of the Tang emperor Gao Zong, during the era Xianheng (A.D. 670-674), the monk Daoying lived and worked in Fahai Temple.

One morning the chief abbot Huijian observed two men approach the temple in a leisurely manner. He then saw them make a sudden turn and enter the wing of the temple where Daoying lived, where they then suddenly vanished. Abbot Huijian knew that the pair had to be ghosts, and so he sought out Daoying to tell him what he had just seen.

"Yes, they are indeed ghosts," said Daoying. "Not only that, but they are personal emissaries of the Qin king Zhuangxiang."

(King Zhuangxiang was the third Qin dynasty ruler, who reigned from B.C. 249 to 247, just before the reign of Qin Shihuang, the first Qin emperor.)

"And why has King Zhuangxiang sent them?" asked Huijian.

"They have been sent by King Zhuangxiang to our realm to entreat us to offer him, the king, more food sacrifices. According to them, the king has been a wandering hungry ghost for a long time, and he is desperate for something to eat. He also has three hundred hungry-ghost retainers in our realm who are likewise starving."

Daoying had personally communicated to the two ghostly emissaries that he would provide the proper offerings for the king and his hungry ghost retainers. The emissaries further informed Daoying that among the three hundred Qin ghosts there was one whose crimes were especially heavy, dooming him to become a wandering hungry ghost. In fact, so heinous and monstrous had been his deeds in life that he had wandered for eighty years without eating anything.

That particular hungry ghost was none other than General Bai Qi, formerly of the Qin royal dynasty.

(2) Animals: Centipede and Pig

Once in the midst of a snowstorm, a Mr. Wu Shan crushed a one chi-long white centipede. On closer inspection, Wu Shan saw on the dead arthropod's back two characters: "Bai Qi." Another anecdote tells us how the friend of Pan Congxian, Ruan Jun, was once at the butcher's when he witnessed a pig being slaughtered. On the pig's back there could be clearly seen three characters: "Qin" (i.e., "of the Qin dynasty") and "Bai Qi."

(3) Back From Hell Itself

There was once a seventeen year old girl, a Miss Chen, who lived south of the Yangtze. Now this girl had never gone to school, so there would have been lots of historical facts unknown to her. One day she came down with a very serious illness and was confined to bed.

When she was about to die, she summoned her family to her bedside and suddenly exclaimed: "I am General Bai Qi who lived during the Age of Warring States. When I was alive, I killed more than 100,000 men, and in hell, I endured all types of punishments without cessation. Only recently, have I been able to leave and take residence in the body of this girl at her birth. But now you can see I am about to die, for I would not be allowed in this existence to live beyond twenty years. My fate . . . is . . . thus . . ."

With those words, the young woman slowly closed her eyes as her time on earth expired.

From these vignettes, you can see the karmic journeys of Bai Qi's soul--from hungry ghost, to lowly centipede and then pig, to resident of hell, then to the body of the unfortunate short-lived girl and then into some other newborn baby's body and so on and so on and so on . . . !

Behold the never-ending reward for those who commit unspeakable acts! Can anyone deny being afraid of receiving the same fate? Can anyone refuse to take care so as not to meet such a fate?

Notes

from Yinguo baoying gushi leibian (A dictionary of karmic retribution stories), compiled by Tang Xiangqing. No publisher or location listed. 1982; pp. 57-59.

The book from which this story comes was printed to be distributed freely. It is thus a category of book called shanshu, "good book(s)," religious tracts which are printed by donations and handed out for free. I obtained it either on Taiwan or at an Yiguandao temple (see 4/17/09 for more about Yiguandao, or IKT) in Southern California more than twenty years ago.

One chi is approximately a third of a meter.

Interestingly, while in the incarnation of the dying Miss Chen, General Bai Qi claims to have "killed more than 100,000 men," as opposed to the 400,000 plus for which he is usually credited according to Chinese annals. (The general was an actual historical person and is considered to have been a master strategist and tactician.) The story does not identify who Wu Shan, Pan Congxian, and Ruan Jun were.

Stories of centipedes rescuing heroes notwithstanding, the centipede, one of the "five evil" creatures, and the pig are lowly animals, and any human's reincarnation as either one should be a powerful statement on that human's status within the wheel of karma. In other words, it shows us how far that human has been degraded from once having been a human being. Before being reborn as Miss Chen, General Bai Qi goes through the three horrible stages of nonhuman existence in Chinese Buddhism: hungry ghost, animal and hell-imprisoned being.

For a much less grimmer story alluding to rebirth, see "To the Other Realm and Back," 7/10/07.

Ghost Stories From Ancient China -- Series Five

2010-04-08T22:06:00.001-07:00

(1) From Behind the Veil

The prefect of Hongdian, Henan Province, had a lovely daughter, and when she was twenty eight, she became engaged to a man surnamed Lu. On the day she and her family were preparing the wedding at their home, a woman who had often come into their home, a magician, a practitioner of the secret arts, showed up.

"My daughter is on her way to be married tonight!" said the mother to the magician. "You've seen her fiance several times. Tell me--what is his fortune like?"

"Let's see. . . Mr. Lu, you say? The Mr. Lu with the long beard?"

"Yes!"

"He is not to be your son-in-law. No, your son-in-law will be a man with a medium build, clean-shaven and light complexioned."

The mother was flabbergasted. "No, no. How could that be? Don't you see my daughter is dressed for her wedding ceremony? She is to belong to the Lu family. There can be no mistake about this."

"There is no mistake indeed. I am correct," replied the magician.

"Can you please tell me why Mr. Lu is not to be my son-in-law then?"

"I do not know why, madam. All I can tell you is that Mr. Lu will not be your son-in-law."

At that very moment, the "bride price," gold and other valuable gifts, arrived, brought over by special couriers ahead of the wedding entourage of the groom-to-be. The prefect's wife was now completely irate.

"Look! Look at this gold, these jewels," she said to the sorceress. "Can you still say my daughter is not to wed Mr. Lu tonight?"

"The wedding is to be tonight, madam, not this very instant. A lot can happen before the night is over."

By this time, the ruckus attracted the attention of the prefect himself and the rest of the wedding party. He ordered the magician to leave immediately, which she did.

The Lus had finally arrived! Father, mother and son climbed down from their sedan coach and entered the prefect's house. There, they exchanged both pleasantries and then, gifts.

But then, as the time for the service to begin, as the future groom and still veiled bride faced each other for the first time, from out of the blue . . .

"Ahhhh!" Young Mr. Lu screamed. He was completely gripped by overwhelming panic.

And then, to the utter amazement of everyone present, he leaped upon a horse and fled the scene! More than one person there also climbed upon a horse to chase the frightened man. Once they had caught up with him, no one could convince him to return to the prefect's house.

As one could imagine, the prefect was beside himself with rage, which he felt all the way to each root of hair on his head. He looked at his daughter, so beautiful in her silk gown, destined this day to be dressed for a wedding but to remain unwed. He turned to the gathered guests.

"How can this be?" he asked. "How can this be? Behold my daughter." She now stood before everyone, unveiled. "You can all see her very clearly, can you not? Is she truly so hideous? If she doesn't marry today, lies will spread that she has the face and body of a beast! I shall not have that! Do you hear me? I shall not have that! So, gathered guests, hear what I have to say. If any man among you wishes to marry my daughter tonight, to marry her right now, you may do so with my blessings! Well? Is there a man among you who would take my daughter as your wife home with you tonight?"

A young man, a guest, named Zheng, stepped forward. He had admired the prefect's daughter. Yes, she was, by any standard, beautiful. Not only that she was also graceful and gentle.

"I would like to take your daughter as my wife, Excellency!" said Mr. Zheng. "I desire the honor of calling you my father-in-law!"

This Mr. Zheng--he was of medium height, beardless, rather pale--just as the magician had foretold. And that night, he became the prefect's honorable son-in-law.

Several years passed.

One day Mr. Zheng ran into Mr. Lu, his old friend whom he had not seen since that night.

"Please tell me," said Zheng, "what happened to you the night you were supposed to marry the lady who became my wife? Why did you run off that way?"

"Believe it or not, " Lu responded, "she appeared to me as a ghost. Her two eyes were a fiery red, and her face, from behind the veil, very dark, a greenish black. I had never been so frightened before in my life!"

Mr. Zheng laughed and called for his wife, who was actually nearby. She walked up to join her husband and Mr. Lu.

"Does she still look like a ghost now?" asked Mr. Zheng.

Mr. Lu was obviously deeply ashamed and hung his head low, unable to speak. He had to walk away.

From this we can see that only those truly meant to be together shall be wed and that to expect otherwise would be all in vain.

Notes

from Zhongguo qitan, pp. 172-174. (For original citation, see 3/26/09.)

This tale is originally from the Tang dynasty anthology by Li Fuyan, More Amazing Records of Oddities (Xuxuan guailu). Brides in China have been wearing veils at least since the Northern and Southern Dynasties (A.D. 420-589). Anthologist Liu Yiqing (A.D. 403-444) in his famous New Chats on Worldly Happenings (Shishuo xinyu) related a tale of a groom who retired to the "marriage room" with his bride to remove her veil only to storm out unwilling to return because of her extraordinary homeliness. The character Lu's description of the bride's appearance tallies with traditional descriptions of ghosts. For a tale with a somewhat similar theme, karma and the inviolable sanctity of marriage, see 5/4/08, "The Old Man Under the Moon." Motifs: E338(b), "Female ghost seen in house"; E421.1.1., "Ghost visible to one person alone"; E363.1.1., "Ghost substituting for bride."

(2) Pretty White Dress

Zhong Yao, a man of Yingchuan, Henan, had already stopped seeking out his friends for eating and drinking engagements for several months now. He had just dropped out of sight. When some of his old pals finally ran into him, they noticed a change had come over him. He just didn't seem himself; he seemed burdened. So one of his friends asked him if he was all right.

"Well . . . ," he replied slowly, hesitantly, "a girl . . . a girl often comes to visit me."

In those days, such things were just not likely to happen. Moreover, Zhong Yao appeared anguished. The friends put two and two together.

"Listen, Yao," said one of the friends, "you're being visited not by a human but by a ghost. Don't fall for her charms. She means you harm. Next time she comes by, you need to kill her."

The friends parted. Zhong Yao returned home.

That had been some mighty drastic advice! The suggestion left Zhong more confused, uneasy than ever. To kill her! Yet, to let her grow upon him, as a ghost does like a cancer, weakening him, sickening him . . . That was hardly an acceptable alternative as well. He was torn up about what to do; the choices were both eating him alive. He knew his friends had been right; she was an evil spirit. But the solution! He couldn't stand the thought of what he must do.

Not many days later, the girl, wearing her pretty white silk dress and red vest, showed up at his front gate. This time, though, she just stood there, unwilling to enter.

"Well, why don't you come in?" asked Zhong Yao.

The girl paused before answering. She finally spoke. "You're planning to kill me."

"What? How could you even say such a thing?" He motioned for her to enter, which she did, ever so hesitantly.

She was now inside his home. Zhong Yao felt his head would burst. A knife lay on the table. Should he step quickly over to the table and grab the knife? He clapped his hands onto his head; he felt his veins throbbing. Should he just let her go? Then what? She'd return again and again, and he'd grow sicker and sicker; eventually he'd waste away to nothing . . .

Meanwhile, she stood there, watching him.

He gritted his teeth, ran to the table and grabbed the knife. He attacked her and they struggled. She was somehow able to get away, though he had nicked her leg, making her cry out in pain. She made it outside and escaped into the street, patting her wound with cotton liner from her vest, trailing blood in the street.

The next day, Zhong Yao had a friend follow the bloody trail. It led all the way into the cemetery and ended at a tomb. When Zhong Yao heard this, he mustered his courage and went with a couple of his friends to the cemetery. There, they dug up the coffin from this tomb where the trail of blood had ended. They opened the coffin to find a beautiful but dead young woman, whose flesh was totally uncorrupted, who looked as fresh and alive as the last time he had seen her, clothed in a white silk dress under a red vest made even redder by stanching the flow of blood . . .

Notes

from Hanwei liuchao guiguai xiaoshuo, p. 64. (For original citation, see posting for 3/26/09). Originally from Sousenji by Gan Bao.

In this grisly tale, the friends of Zhong Yao are correct in identifying their friend's lover as a ghost/vampire partially due to her unseemly behavior in presenting herself at his house. (The term "vampire" is used very loosely here, as the Chinese version doesn't lust for blood. Rather, it mechanically attacks and slashes people, even devouring them.) Ghost (gui) or vampire/zombie (jiangshi)? That is a blurred distinction in old China, as zombie-like revenants, jiangshi, propelled by their hatred for and need to kill the living, also appear in ghost-story anthologies. Both ghosts and vampires are classified as guiguai, which means something like "ghosts and the hideous and bizarre," a catchall phrase for evil revenants much like the Japanese bakemono, i.e., vengeful, murderous ghosts and "things capable of transforming," or "shapeshifters." However, the young lady here possesses a consciousness that is usually lacking in the robotic jiangshi. She is anything but the unthinking, killing and grisly looking automaton that characterizes Chinese vampires, or "stiff corpses." . Motifs: B511.1.3, "Vampire sheds blood"; E422.4.4(a), "Female revenant in white clothing"; H56, "Recognition by wound."

(3) Youchang's Wife

The scholar Jin Youchang, originally from Henan, had been living on Zhongtiao Mountain, Puzhou, Shanxi Province, for five years, when he saw from his yard a country girl carrying a bucket of water from a stream. She was a total beauty, and so it became a habit of Youchang's to tarry by his gate every day so that he could catch a glimpse of her as often as possible as she returned from her trip to the stream. She did not disappoint him; she came to fetch water from the stream daily.

On this day, he decided he would finally speak to her, so he waited once again by his gate. Sure enough, the girl soon showed up on the path, lugging her heavy pail of water.

"Young woman!" he accosted her as she passed by. "Why should a rare beauty like you have to carry pails of water?"

The girl, not very shy, laughed and replied, "Why shouldn't I have to carry water? I need water too. Truth be told, I'm an orphan and live with my aunt and uncle. I fetch the water for them."

Then, rather boldly, Youchang said, "If you are not already spoken for, which would be difficult to believe, I hope you'd consider being my wife, if you find me at all to your liking!"

"If you don't mind, I'll return after sundown and we can speak more of this."

Well, she did return that night and they had their talk. In very short time, they were husband and wife! They were very happy and affectionate as newlyweds are, and each day and night was a joy for them to be with each other. It was her habit to be at her husband's side as he studied way into the early hours of the morning, when he would nod off with his nose in his books. He would stagger off to bed, lie down and fall fast asleep. Only then would she lie down by his side and join him in sleep.

Life was like this for half a year.

Now one night in the study, Youchang was busy reading, his wife standing nearby. She showed no intention of sitting down next to him.

"Oh?" he asked. "You're not going to sit with me? Come! Sit and rest. You have been up and about, pacing since I came in."

She slowly turned around and looked down at him. "I am going to bed early. I have to ask you something."

"Certainly." He returned to his book.

"When you come to bed," she said, "whatever you do, please don't bring the lantern with you."

"Fine . . . Fine . . . " He was now concentrating on a challenging passage in the book.

"I'll be very happy--it'll be good for me--if you don't bring the lantern."

"Good . . . Fine . . . "

She went to bed. He continued to pour all his attention to his reading and soon forgot what she had told him. After a while, his eyes sore; he got up and headed for the bedroom.

In his hand, he carried the lantern.

He entered the bedroom. The lantern showed him very clearly--there on his bed was not his wife but a pile of bones.

The shock and the horror! He did what others might have also done--he covered up the bones with a blanket, whereupon the bones once again quickly grew flesh and hair and became a living person, or so it seemed, once more--his wife.

She came out from under the blanket.

"All right, so now you know," she said. "I am no longer a person, just the spirit of those lifeless bones you saw."

"Who are really you then?" he asked.

"I am one of the spirits that belong to the southern side of this mountain.. On the northern slope is the king of the local spirits, King Hengming. Each month, we spirits and ghosts must pay our respects to the king. I have not done so since marrying you, not for six months. For that I am being punished. A shade was sent to beat me, whip me with an iron whip, which he did one hundred times! You could not see this, but I surely did and felt it! I could not sit down without crying out in pain and had to come in, lie down and rest."

Youchang was speechless.

"And now," his wife continued, "I've been discovered."

"You . . . you are my . . . wife . . . "

"I cannot be now! Listen to me, Youchang! Please leave me and this place! Tonight! Now! Don't be so wrapped up in me that you lose your life by staying here!"

"But. . . "

"No! Listen! Everything on this accursed mountain belongs to King Hengming--everything! If you stay here, you will meet a horrible end! Leave . . . now . . . while you have . . . the chance . . ."

With that, she vanished before his eyes.

Youchang cried a small river of tears. Now, with his wife gone forever, he deeply regretted carrying that lantern into the bedroom. He gathered up the things he could carry, and though it was dark and the middle of the night, he left the house and went down the mountain.

Notes

from Zhongguo qitan, pp. 198-200. (See citation for 3/26/09). Originally from Jiyi ji by Xue Yongruo. (See 5/04/09).

In this version of the supernatural spouse tale, the wife is a ghost, not an animal or a shapeshifting goddess. Jin Youchang apparently doesn't sicken and die for cohabiting with a ghost. Motifs: C932, "Loss of wife for breaking tabu"; E1, "Dead brought back to life"; E481, "Shadow people"; E481.3, "Abode of dead in mountain."

The Black Pagoda and the White Pagoda (Fujian)

2010-03-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

The crown of Fuzhou, or the "dragon's horns," are the two pagodas, the Black Pagoda and the White Pagoda. Together, they are "the twin towers of the Banyan City."

More than a thousand years ago, before the region around Fuzhou became part of the Song empire, Fuzhou and its environs were ruled by a local king. He was not consent being king of the region, however. He wanted to rule a larger area and so kept this desire in his heart, hoping, biding for a chance to be a greater fish in a larger pond, to become even an emperor one day.

One day a Taoist priest traveling through the area had an audience with the king.

"Ahh, your Banyan City, Fuzhou, is indeed a lucky place, Your Majesty!" the priest told the king.

"Oh? How so?"

"Well, the northwest hills resemble the undulating back of a dragon, leading up to its head, the city itself. This is a very good sign for you, Your Majesty, presaging your rise to emperor one day. Yes, it's a pity . . ."

"What is a 'pity'?"

"Something's missing in this pattern I see with the dragon's back and its head. What's missing is there are no horns for the dragon. No horns for the dragon means an incomplete dragon, an incomplete promise of greatness for this region . . . and for you."

The king was interested; after all, a vision of tremendous majesty for him had just been foretold and was now, just as quickly dispersing like smoke in the wind.

"What can be done, Priest? What do you suggest?"

"You need to let the dragon have its horns!" Build two pagodas--one on Wushishan and the other on Yushan. Then will your dragon come to life!"

The king was delighted. He immediately posted notices in the area calling for men to build the pagodas. He also employed two builders, a master builder and his student. The master was in his sixties, a very dedicated professional; his student was very young--only thirty--but was very clever and talented. They had both built many towers and pavilions in Fujian but had never undertaken as lofty a project as two tall pagodas. Nevertheless, they were hired by the king for the job.

The master builder and his student then mustered a large workforce of laborers to begin the project. The laborers first went to the quarry to extract slabs of stone. Then, under the direction of the master builder, they carried the many heavy slaps to the first construction site, Wushishan, where what would be the future Black Pagoda was to be built. When the first floor of the first pagoda was finished, the master builder had his men cover the outer circumference of the first floor with packed dirt.

"Why did you have the men pack the base of the pagoda with earth that way, Master?" asked the student.

"Each slab weighs several hundred jin," the master replied. "If we don't do so, how can the men carry the slabs up to the second floor?"

Well, the student thought this was mighty foolish, wasteful of time and labor, but he held his tongue and did his part to help the master.

By the time the fourth floor was ready two months later, the dirt surrounding the growing pagoda resembled a small mountain.

"This is taking too long, Master," said the student. "Surely there must be another way other than building high dirt ramps all the way round the pagoda!"

"What do you know?!" snapped the master. "This is a time-honored method. If you have a better way, go ahead!"

The student then left to see the king. He asked the king's permission to begin building the other pagoda on Yushan. The king gave him authorization.

When the master builder found out, he said to his student, "All right, fine. You go right ahead. Let's see what you can do. You're still my apprentice, so I'm obligated to helping you if you end up needing my help. Just make sure you don't allow the pagoda to lean."

So the apprentice began work on what was to become later known as the White Pagoda. And there would be no mounds of dirt built up around each successive floor of this pagoda! No, thank you, indeed! Instead, he would build this pagoda the way it should be built--with more ease. There would be no shortcuts regarding quality, durability or permanency; however, it would be built in a manner that didn't require needless backbreaking labor and time delays. It would be built of bricks without the need of having huge slabs lugged up ramps of dirt. He also decided to have bamboo scaffolding, not the dirt, for the workers to ascend the pagoda. The scaffolding could easily be extended higher and higher as the pagoda grew.

All went well, maybe too well.

When the sixth floor of the master's pagoda was still being built, the student had already completed the second floor of the pagoda. By the time the master was finished with his sixth floor, the student was finished with his, as well.

And then it happened--the seventh and final floor of the apprentice's pagoda was finally completed, while the master and his crew still labored on their tower!

The apprentice catered a huge feast and lots of wine. He invited his teacher over and the two celebrated. They ate and drank too much and ended up sleeping it off in the work tent where construction of the pagoda was overseen.

The pair woke up early in the morning. A huge windstorm had blown down the tent. They scrambled out to look at the pagoda.

It had noticeably tilted.

"I'm done! I'm doomed!" cried the student. "The next time the king pays a visit and sees the pagoda leaning like that, he'll have our heads for sure!"

He now deeply regretted having been such an upstart maverick, unwilling to listen to caution or to follow the proper way.

"Don't panic," said the master. "Leaning pagodas and towers can be straightened, but it's not easy, and we have to act immediately. As your teacher, I'll help you. There's one thing you must promise me, though."

"Yes, yes! Anything! What is it, Master?"

"Once we're done with your pagoda, you and your men must help me finish the seventh floor of my pagoda."

The student agreed, of course. The pair then quickly gathered many, many wooden pegs.

Taking an iron mallet, the master turned to his student and said, "I'm going inside. I'll hammer pegs to redirect the way the pagoda must lean. You wait outside and keep an eye out to let me know as soon as the pagoda begins to move back in the right direction."

And so the master entered the pagoda with his mallet and innumerable pegs. He proceeding to hammer away.

Day and night, skipping meals and sleep, the master desperately hammered away as his apprentice assistant kept watch outside. The master hammered and hammered until he was worn out but he continued.

The sound of blows coming from within the pagoda began to diminish and become softer.

Some time during the seventh day, the student shouted, "Master! You can stop now! The pagoda has returned to an upright position!"

No response came from inside.

The student entered. There, sitting on the floor of the pagoda with his mallet resting beside him was the master, a smile on his face, but he would breathe no more . . .

The student cried and cried. Then he realized the next day the king would show up to observe the progress of the two pagodas.

The student had the pagoda painted white to show his filial devotion to his late master.

The king indeed showed up the next day. When he saw that one of the pagoda's was white, the color of mourning, instead of black like the unfinished one, he became livid.

"What on earth!" the king thundered. "What were you thinking, doing such a thing?! Are you trying to subvert my reign, my plans?"

The student just stood there, unable to answer.

"You didn't have permission from me to mourn your teacher by painting my pagoda white!"

The king snapped his fingers for his guards. He had them bind the student and prepare to behead the young man on the spot.

"Your Majesty, please don't let anger overtake your good judgment!"

The king turned his head to see who had addressed him thus. His prime minister was there.

"Your Majesty, might it not be a better idea to let this man finish the other pagoda first? You can always execute him later."

"Fine," said the king. Then, turning to the student, he said, "By tomorrow, have this white pagoda painted in five colors. I'll also give you one month to complete the other pagoda. Now, get to it!"

He was untied and left in the dust as the king and his men departed. He picked himself up. With great fury but also deep grief over the loss of his mentor, he stormed into the White Pagoda.

If this tyrant ever became an emperor, heaven help us all! he thought. He then took a brush and wrote the following poem on the top floor of the pagoda:

The completion of the seventh floor of this pagoda
Is a disaster for Fuzhou.
We must overthrow and kill this dissolute despot
And change the dynasty.
Pull up the new weeds by the roots,
And you won't need to worry about them ever again.
Anyone want to be the next king?
You'd better act fast!

He then left the pagoda and escaped into the night, never to be seen in those parts again.

The next morning, the prime minister and one of the king's generals came by to see if the pagoda had been repainted. When they say it was still white, they became furious. They looked for the student, but he was nowhere to be found. They then grabbed a pair of nearby monks and pressed them for answers. Frightened, the first monk concocted a story.

"I saw what had happened!" the monk said. "It was last night. A great whirlwind descended from the heavens and whisked the young builder right up! It circled three times and then zoomed up into the heavens and out of sight!"

The prime minister and the general now turned to the second monk, who was no less frightened than the first.

"Yes, Excellencies, I saw all that too! What's more, I heard celestial music as the young builder rode a crane inside the whirlwind funnel up into the night sky!"

Instead of being suspicious, the prime minister was actually afraid, though he didn't show it. In fact the monk's story confirmed something for him: the student was some kind of immortal or even a god in human form.

The pair let the monks go and entered the pagoda. At the top, they spotted the poem and had workers quickly paint over it. Then they left to report back to the king.

"Your Majesty," said the prime minister, having told the king that the student had disappeared, "I suspect the missing apprentice is some kind of deity or demigod . . . "

"Do l look as though I care what he is?" the king replied. "I need that pagoda finished, and I'm leaving it all up to you and your friend the general here. Now, within the next three days, you'll need to paint dragons, phoenixes, and Buddhist images upon the pagoda. Not only that, I'll give you one month to finish the top of the pagoda. There need to be three more floors for the Black Pagoda, nine in all! Get this job done, or you'll both lose your heads!"

Now they were in a jam. Neither was, of course, by profession an architect or builder. They quickly gathered a work crew together and, unable to find an architect or builder, they plunged ahead to the best of their abilities. The result? Masonry came loose and fell; many workers died. A few more days into the ongoing and already deadly fiasco, the prime minister and general sat down together to discuss the progress.

"We might as well as forget about the ninth floor," said the prime minister. "Let's just cap the pagoda with a pointed roof."

"Fine," said the general. "I'll order the men to remove the dirt ramps."

The roof was put in place and the dirt was removed. It was now the nineteenth day. The king was asked to come and inspect his now completed Black Pagoda. The prime minister and the general now openly discussed the unmentionable that was already obvious in their hearts.

"Tomorrow the king arrives," said the prime minister.

"Yes, I know."

"And the Black Pagoda is clearly tilted."

"I know."

"That means tomorrow the king will see this and have us both beheaded. I wonder if there's anything we can do . . . "

"'Anything we can do'!" snorted the general. Then he became quiet for a moment, as if in a reverie. "If he wants our lives, he'll take them, unless . . . we . . . take . . . his . . . first . . ."

"Ha! Yes! Do you remember what that immortal, the student builder, wrote before we had it covered up?"

They looked at each other and smiled; they had some planning to do . . .

The next day, as soon as he left his palace to head out for the Black Pagoda, the king was ambushed by the general's men and killed by a single arrow. The general and his force then stormed the palace and put to the sword every member of the king's family.

Their project completed, the prime minister and the general agreed to share power and each rule as king. Before long, relations between the two "kings" had deteriorated; the men propping them up then broke into two factions that loathed each other. And soon, all out fighting between the two broke out. Neither man had been popular with the people of Fuzhou. During the struggle, the people rose up and slew both the former prime minister and the general.

The people wanted the apprentice builder to serve as new king; however, he was nowhere to be found . . .

And so, Fuzhou never did get another king. A few decades later, Fuzhou became part of the Song empire.

And the Black Pagoda and the White Pagoda? They still stand in Fuzhou, black and white, "dragon horn" landmarks of the Banyan City!

Notes

from Wuta baita (The black and white pagoda), the Association for Research of Chinese Folk Literature, ed. Fuzhou: Fujian Renmin Chubanshe, 1982; pp. 7-12.

The king alluded to in the story was no doubt a member of the Wang family who founded the Kingdom of Min (909-945 A.D.). "Min" is the alternative name for the province of Fujian, and its character occurs in other names related to Fujian (i.e., the Min River; Minbei, Minzhong, and Minnan, dialects spoken in Fujian, with the later serving as the main dialect of Taiwan). The story seems to have an anachronistic element: the Black Pagoda was built in 799 A.D., but the White Pagoda wasn't constructed until 905 A.D.

Some Chinese Proverbs About Filial Piety

2010-02-02T22:35:00.001-08:00

Filial behavior is the origin of morality and the foundation of the way of justice and integrity.

The sages ruled mankind through their own filial behavior.

Loyal retainers all started out as filial disciples.

Love and gratitude for parents is as deep as the ocean and as lofty as Mount Tai.

A filial son gladdens both parents, and there is nothing a harmonious family together cannot accomplish.

A stern father makes a filial son; a stern mother makes a sharp-witted girl.

A filial child all the years of his/her life holds parents in the highest esteem.

One does not abuse one's own body; one does not shame one's own parents.

Love whatever your parents love; respect whatever they respect.

No sooner does one think of all the wonderful gifts received from one's parents than one begins to evince one's own filial piety.

Taking care of your body is being filial.

To hit a son is to hurt a mother.

As far as behavior goes, nothing is greater than filial piety.

Notes

from Xiaodao, pp. 7-11.

Stories of Filial Children -- Series Three

2010-01-31T21:09:00.001-08:00

(1) Meng Zong (Three Kingdoms)

During the period of the Three Kingdoms (220-265 A.D.), there lived a filial young man named Meng Zong. When he was very young, he lost his father. Later, his mother came down with a serious, debilitating illness. Zong's mother now had to depend upon him.

Winter came. With winter came, of course, fewer vegetables. Bamboo shoots, Mrs. Meng's favorite vegetable, were very difficult to find, and, in her weakened state, she began to long desperately for bamboo shoots again in her porridge.

Meng Zong didn't know what to do, where to go to find bamboo shoots. The markets wouldn't have them. He went to the cold, arid bamboo grove and, in desperation, knelt down in the grove, clutched a stalk of bamboo and cried.

Heaven and earth took pity on this young man's frustration, and instantly the earth split open to reveal fresh bamboo shoots for him to pull up and take home, which he did. He then, in the dead of winter, made his mother's porridge with the bamboo shoots she loved so much. He did so again and again. Eventually she made a full recovery.

Notes

from Xiaodao, p. 62. (See the posting for 4/17/09 for the full citation.)

Unlike most stories of filial children, this one has obvious supernatural elements.

(2) Tan Zi (Zhou Dynasty)

Tan Zi of the Zhou Dynasty (1045-221 B.C.) was a very filial son. He took care of his parents, both of whom had become blind from age and illness. His parents loved milk from deer, and, in order to get deer milk, Tan Zi had to wear the hide of a deer, with his head covered by the deer scalp and antlers. Then, he would approach a herd of the fleet-footed animals, enter into their midst, and then be able to obtain milk.

One day he was out searching for some deer on behalf of his parents, wearing his disguise, when from not far away, a hunter in the tall grass spotted him and assumed Tan Zi was a deer. The hunter deftly took an arrow out and and was about to shoot it at Tan Zi.

"Wait! Wait! Don't shoot!" cried Tan Zi. The startled hunter put his bow and arrow down. "I'm only dressed this way to get deer milk for my parents!"

The astounded hunter then praised Tan Zi for being such a filial son as to don animal skins and antlers and to go out to obtain deer milk.

Notes

from Xiaodao, p. 46.

(3) Wu Meng (Jin Dynasty)

Wu Meng of the Jin Dynasty (265-420 A.D.) came from a poor family, one so poor that they could not afford a mosquito net. Thus, on hot summer nights, he would study and sleep with his upper torso bared so that the mosquitoes would come and bite him instead of his fully covered father sleeping nearby.

Notes

from Xiaodao, p. 50.

(4) Pan Zong (Northern & Southern Dynasties)

Pan Zong of Wuxing Wucheng (now Wuxing County, Zhejiang Province) lived during the turbulent Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589 A.D.). Around the year 422, when the leader of the Wudoumi bandits Sun En had already launched his revolt, Pan Zong and his father Pan Piao were among the refugees fleeing the fighting and carnage.

The two, father and son, were on the road pursued on foot by bandits. Pan Piao could not move any longer and turned to his son. "I'm old!" he said. "I can't move fast enough. You're young and strong. Hurry up and leave me behind! Leave this place! Escape while you can!"

Pan Piao just sat down on the ground and waited for what he believed to be the inevitable. His son, Pan Zong, however, refused to leave his father.

Then, moments later, a pair of bandits caught up with them.

"My father is old!" the boy cried to the bandits. "Please don't kill him!"

One of the bandits stepped forward and deliberately slashed the father with his sword, causing the older man to bleed. Pan Zong immediately shielded his father from the bandit, placing himself in the middle.

The bandit was about to kill them both when his comrade said to him, "What are you doing? That's a filial son protecting his father! How can you kill him? You know killing a filial son invites the wrath of heaven!"

The bandit put then put his sword down and allowed the pair to escape.

Thus did Pan Zong save his father. Both made it to safety and survived.

Centuries later the Song emperor Yuanjia in the fourth year of his reign changed the name of the village Pan Zong had come from to Chunxiaoli, "Pure Filial Hamlet," and exempted its residents from land taxes for three generations.

Notes

from Sanshiliuxiao, p. 48. (Full citation can be found at 4/17/09).
This is story #19 in the Wu Yanhuan edition.

(5) Yan Yingyou (Late Yuan Dynasty)

Yan Yingyou of Xianju Hamlet, Jinmen County, Fujian Province, lived in the waning years of the Mongol Yuan dynasty (c. 1350-1368 A.D.), during the rebellions of the Great Sword Society. The upheavals forced young Yan and his mother to flee as refugees. Eventually he and his mother were separated. He then spent the next twenty six years traveling all over China to search for his mother. He ended up finding her in Qingling Ling (in what is now Yao'an County), Yunnan Province. Mother and son were both overjoyed to be reunited. Shortly after, Yan Yingyou took his mother back home to Jinmen, were he continued to treat her with the utmost filial love and respect.

In time, the two-and-a half-decade journey of Yan Yingyou to find his mother inspired many poems throughout the centuries, including this one by Shangguan Minwang:

Yunnan and Fujian
One in the West and one in the East,
Both provinces far apart,
Separated by ten thousand li and a bit more.
The waters of the Wu Gorge in Sichuan,
Surging like arrows,
Guansuo Ridge in Yunnan,
Impassable to horse and wagons.
But look at Yan Yingyou,
Who had many narrow escapes
But shrugged them off,
As he journeyed to rescue his aged mother,
His heart and mind tranquil.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Plunging ahead on a filial path,
While darkness lies before him,
Serving his parent with the utmost dedication,
He is the scholar Yingyou of Jinmen.

Notes

from Sanshiliuxiao, p. 68. This is story #29 in the Wu Yanhuan edition.

Jindalai -- A New Year's Tale (Korean)

2010-01-01T11:26:00.000-08:00

It's long been said that the first flower to bloom in the spring is the jindalai, the purple rhododendron. As much as folks love seeing the first appearance of this flower, they love even more to tell the story of how this flower came to be . . .

Long, long ago, in a mountain hamlet there lived an old couple and their only child, their beloved daughter, Dalai. She was a dutiful daughter who went up into the mountains daily to chop and collect firewood.

Now on the southern slope lived a hardy young man named Jin Yu. He too would go into the mountains to gather firewood, and one day he encountered Dalai. They began to chat and soon became friends. Before long, Jin Yu would help Dalai carry her heavy load of wood down the slippery and treacherous mountain path back to her home. Putting the load down and wiping off his sweat, he'd then smile and leave without saying very much.

Dalai and her parents were very poor, like most of the other folks in the area, and like many others, her family was deeply in debt to the local landowner. It would take more than a couple of lifetimes of repayment for Dalai's family to compensate him! The landowner had a son who for a long time had had his eyes on Dalai. She was very beautiful and could embroider--what a wonderful wife she would make! The son liked very much what he saw and in his heart wanted her for his wife.

And so he decided he would pay Dalai's family a little visit . . .

With his retinue, the landowner's son arrived at the house dressed in his best outfit, waving a silk fan.

Smiling, he said to her parents, "I've come about the back rent and other loans you owe us. Shall we talk?"

The shaken parents quickly ushered him inside and bade him sit as an honored guest.

"I want all the money you owe my family paid up right now," he said.

"But . . . But that's impossible for us!" said the father. "Look around you! You can see we're not wealthy. All we have right now is an abundance of firewood! Surely you can't expect us to pay you right now . . ."

The landowner's son smiled and said nothing for a moment. Then he took out a small silk purse and placed it on the table before the nervous father and mother.

"Well, then, if you can't pay now, I guess you just can't! Here, take the gold and silver inside this purse and buy yourselves a nice meal with it." He then snapped his fingers for one of his servants outside the house. The man entered carrying a big bundle and, at the direction of the landowner's son, placed the bundle upon the floor. "In this parcel," said the son of the landowner, "is the finest silk you shall ever find. Have your Dalai make herself some fine clothes with it."

The landowner or his son had never shown such kindness before, thought both the father and mother. What is going on here? What is all this about? It dawned on them: he wants Dalai.

Dalai and Jin Yu then came in the house.

"What's this?" Dalai asked her parents in front of the landowner's son, pointing with her nose to the bundle upon the floor.

The landowner's son sat and watched eagerly, smiling, hoping for a favorable reaction.

Dalai understood from where the gift had come. Without opening it or waiting for someone to explain what was inside, she picked the parcel up and tossed it out the front door into the dunghill.

Well, the landowner's son was ready to explode! His face turned a beet red, and he struggled to keep his tongue still. However, he controlled himself. He got up, had his man retrieve the package of silk from the dung heap and left.

And so that was that--at least for a couple of days.

A few days later, a messenger from the landowner arrived at Dalai's home. Dalai and her parents were there to receive the message.

"You are to surrender your daughter Dalai to our master within three days' time for the wedding ceremony," he told the parents. Before leaving, he added, "Have her ready on the appointed day and sent to our master; otherwise, our master will be obligated to send a party here and take her by force. Woe unto anyone who interferes!"

Dalai turned to her parents and said, "I'd rather die than marry the son of the landowner! I already love someone who loves me back and who respects me! Jin Yu!"

Dalai's parents were very upset, as was Jin Yu when he had heard the news. Together they went off to collect firewood.

Not sure of what to do, they looked up to the white crane in the sky and asked him where they could go.

"Outside this heaven you can see," replied the crane, "there are nine other heavens. Among them there is no place for you? Come now!"

They next asked the deer the same question.

The deer said, "Within this forest, there is a deeper, lusher, thicker forest. Do you fear within it there is no place for you two? Oh, please!"

That is what we shall do, Jin Yu and Dalai decided. We shall go together to the forest within a forest and then through the nine heavens . . .

Dalai didn't show up at the landowner's house on the appointed day. Instead, the day after the third day, she put on her finest dress, a pink one. Then, hand in hand, Dalai and Jin Yu headed off into the forest.

Hot on their heels and chasing them into the forest were the landowner himself, his son and his men. Within striking distance they were until the rocks, stones and pebbles made them stumble and fall. When they picked themselves up to chase farther, the moss made them slip and fall again. And again they picked themselves up to go after Jin Yu and Dalai, and this time the vines coiled around their ankles, and the thorns and brambles stung them.

When the landowner, his son and his henchmen finally got free, Jin Yu and Dalai were nowhere to be seen.

"Do this then!" shouted the landowner. "Have all available men surround the base of the mountain. Then have men with torches burn the whole mountain right up to its peak! For sure those two will try to escape the inferno, and when they do, we'll grab 'em!"

And that's what the landowner's men did--they torched the whole mountain from bottom to top, knowing that fire travels upwards. Soon the entire mountain was engulfed in flames.

Soon, thought the landowner, any minute now, the pair will come fleeing from the smoke . . .

Soon, thought, the landowner's son, Dalai will be mine . . .

The fire burned and burned and did not die until the mountain was a scorched and all its vegetation burned to smoking crisps.

The landowner, his son and their men waited and waited, but no one came out.

Jin Yu and Dalai were never seen again.

Dalai's father and mother went to the mountain to search for Dalai and the man who was to be her husband, Jin Yu. It was now spring, and though the mountain had been seared by fierce flames, on both sides of the mountain path grew fresh wildflowers. Then, at the peak, the old couple saw two very beautiful blooming flowers facing each other.

"Dalai . . . and . . . Jin Yu . . ., " one of the parents said aloud. "There . . . they . . . are! There they are!"

As soon as those words were spoken, the whole mountaintop was bathed in the most aromatic scent the old people had ever encountered.

The story spread far and wide. In time those two flowers became known as jindalai, a combination of the names "Jin Yu" and "Dalai." And so every spring, Jin Yu and Dalai return, though just for a short time, as these flowers.

Notes

from Zhongguo funu chuanshuo gushi, Li Meng, ed., pp. 37-40. (See 2/26/08 for complete citation.)

This is a story linked to the new year of the traditional lunar calendar (i.e., Korean and Chinese New Year).

Another English version of this story is at http://ttt.esperanto-usa.org/en/node1090

This story, collected in Heilongjiang, is well known on the Korean peninsula, its place of origin.

In yet another Chinese-language version, it is Dalai's brother who escapes with her to the forested mountain, where they incite a rebellion against the emperor who would snatch Dalai away from her family. An old man with silver whiskers materializes out from a crevice and offers the pair a magical horse and jeweled sword with which to fight the emperor's forces. In the end, however, due to their carelessness, Dalai is killed and her brother is captured. Their blood stains the mountain slopes upon which later grow the flowers known as jindalai (see "Jindalai" in Zhongguo minjian wenyi cidian, ed. Guan Yanru. Lanzhou: Gansu Renmin chubanshe, p. 188).

Motifs: D212, "Man, woman transformed to flowers"; D457.13, "Blood becomes flowers"; E711.2.2, "Soul in flowers"; T311.1, "Flight of maiden to escape marriage."

Christmas 2009

2009-12-24T21:01:00.000-08:00

To all who visit this website and their loved ones, I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Cheers & All the best, FHL

Wisdom From the Heartland -- Proverbs From the Provinces of Hebei, Henan, Hubei & Hunan

2009-12-20T22:58:00.000-08:00

Hebei

One can become poor from being wealthy. (For some who are addicted to a lavish lifestyle, their all-too-short period of wealth leads to an even quicker slide into poverty.)

Only one "today"; only one "right now." (It's better for us to take each problem one day at a time; even more importantly, we should focus on the here and now, not the what was here or might not be here.)

For every household, there's one sky once the door's been opened. ("To each his own." Each person's life has its own necessities, problems, reality, and ways of doing things.)

The ingredients for noodles is the same; the kneading is different. (We're basically all the same; it's what we do with our lives that is different.)

A person who is told by another to "drop dead" won't do so unless heaven wills it so. (One's successes or failures are not dictated by the mere wishes of others.)

Those without smiling faces close up shop early. (A prosperous business at least partly depends on a friendly demeanor.)

Reputation is to people what bark is to trees. (Both reputation and bark protect and insulate their respective hosts.)

A person may be poor but not his/her aspirations. (A poverty in funds is least consequential, for a wealth of determination is what enables one to succeed.)

With ten monks come nine accents. ("Too many cooks spoil the broth.")

When one's careful, one can accomplish a hundred things; when one's reckless, even just one inch can be rough going. ("Haste makes waste." Mandarin speakers also say, "With preparations, there won't be any disasters.")

No matter how big the biggest mountain is, it can never crush the sun. (It's easy to be intimidated in a debate. However, if you argue on behalf of righteousness, stand your ground, no matter how bullying or blustering the opposition is, "the truth will out.")

Like a couple of mutes accusing each other of interrupting. (Who knows who started this?)

You lift your head, not lower it, to ask for help. (Those who need the help of other people ought to show a respectful, pleasant demeanor instead of just silently demanding a handout.)

Henan

Even a god won't stand listening to heartfelt words repeated three times. (With even the best intentioned message, if its repeated too much, it goes in one ear and out the other, if resentment doesn't set in first. In other words, don't nag!)

Like one who can give up a thousand sentences but not be able to part with one copper coin. (Said of those who enter a shop, look around, and chat all day but leave without buying anything.)

Pushing a wheelbarrow requires no education; all that is required here is for the gluteus maximus to move. (There are times just to roll up the sleeves and get to work and let good old-fashioned elbow grease get the job done.)

Good people are fooled just as a good horse is ridden. (Here, "fooled" and "ridden" rhyme and are somewhat homophonic. The naive end up, like a docile horse, being manipulated.)

There can be a once or a twice but never a third or a fourth. (An occasional honest mistake can be tolerated but not mistakes over and over, especially the same or similar errors.)

To hear of something a hundred times is not as worthwhile as seeing it once. ("One picture speaks a thousand words.")

To secure the front gate against tigers but to let a wolf in through the back gate. (To be shortsighted, unable to see the big picture, thus doomed to adversity.)

Hubei

In sales, the goods make up thirty percent, while the shopkeeper's facial expression makes up seventy percent. (Similar to the Hebei proverb above; a merchant with a jolly face will always be able to sell his/her products. People tend to patronize a store with friendly, smiling and helpful staff.)

Beautiful flowers are not fragrant, while those that are fragrant are not particularly beautiful. ("Don't judge a book by its cover.")

As long as there's one person around, there is a world. ("Where there's life, there's hope.")

To lead an ox up a tree. (To engage in a foolish, absurd act, or to try to teach an unteachable person a skill. Mandarin speakers also say, "To play a stringed instrument before a cow.")

Not to blame the tether for being too short but rather to blame the well for being too deep. (To play the blame game--to blame everybody and everything, but not oneself, for one's shortcomings.)

If you fall down a well, don't expect your ears to latch onto something. (Said of people who are about to take a big, unwise risk, of those who are foolishly optimistic.)

To be a bandit while it's still in the middle of the day; to try to eat a duck's egg before it's all the way out of the duck's bottom. (Said of the impetuous and rash, those who cannot wait to plan properly and who, instead go off pell mell to do something foolish and doomed to failure.)

When one is lucky, not even the city walls can stop one; when one bears misfortune, even one's can of salt will contain maggots. (Luck and adversity--they are due to one's fate.)

Having a home with an old person living inside is like having a treasure. (Old people are founts of wisdom and experience and enrich the lives of younger people with whom they live.)

Hunan

It takes much clay to build such a big oven. (Big, grand things are also the sums of their parts. "Rome wasn't built in a day," as we say in the West.)

The problem is not if the soil will yield crops but rather if the farmer will till the soil. ("Where there is a will, there's a way." Mother Nature will do her part; the rest is up to us. Perhaps we can also say as an analog to this proverb: "Heaven helps those who help themselves.")

A small stone can break a great tub. ("All it takes is a small spark to burn down a great forest." Sometimes, as it has been said, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall.")

The land needs irrigation just as an infant needs a wet nurse. (There is an order or system required by nature and nothing can change that.)

From time immemorial, crickets and ants have always cherished their own lives. (Life is precious to all living things, not to mention to human beings.)

When the tofu falls into the ashes, you can neither eat it nor wipe it clean. ("That's the way the cookie crumbles." "Don't cry over spilled milk.")

Notes

from Zhongguo rende suhua, Shang Yingshi, ed. (See 6/19/07 for full citation.)

Demoness (Hmong)

2009-12-15T12:24:00.001-08:00

Long ago Farmer and Mrs. Fuxiang lived deep in the mountains, where they spent many hours and much sweat to make something out of their farm. They also raised pigs, which brought in more money.

A roaming demoness came by their farm and noticed the many pigs in the secure wooden pen by the Fuxiang home.

She wanted those pigs, but breaking down the sturdy logs of the pen would be far from easy. So, she did this: she went back down the mountain to the abandoned campsite of some shepherds, took some dry grass, thrust it in the dying embers of the fire in which they had been roasting yams, blew her breath upon it to make the fire grown, and then took the slowly growing torch with her back up the mountain to the farm. There, waiting for the west wind, she stuck the torch into a crack and set the pen wall on fire.

The fire burned and burned well!

Now the Fuxiangs had been out in the field, but from far away they could see a column of smoke and heard the squeals of their pigs. They rushed back as fast as their legs could carry them.

The demoness was long gone.

Farmer and Mrs. Fuxiang put out the fire soon enough; however, there was now a large hole in the wall of pen, and the canopy over the pen had been burned to charcoal.

That night, the farmer and his wife, each holding a club, stood watch in the pen over their pigs.
They stood all night, watching and waiting for anyone or anything that might try to come in.

"Ai," said Farmer Fuxiang, "this is no way to protect our pigs! In the morning, I'm going to find a carpenter who can repair this hole and build a new canopy!"

"Well, I guess you'd better," said his wife. "You know these mountains are full of tigers and demons, and they'd like nothing better than to devour all our pigs."

The demoness herself was hiding in the bushes and heard what the husband and wife had just said. She smiled. She had a plan.

After daybreak, the demoness turned herself into a man and put on workman's clothes. She also picked up a saw and ax and headed out of the bushes.

The demoness came up the road just as Farmer Fuxiang was coming down it.

"I'm a carpenter at your service," the demoness said to the startled farmer. "Let me guess--you have a pen in need of repair!"

"Why . . . yes . . ."

"Well, then, you'd better take me to see it! Can't let it wait too long, you know, with all these tigers and demons roaming about!"

The farmer stared at this "carpenter."

"Now isn't that odd?" asked Farmer Fuxiang.

"What? What's that?"

"Well, now," continued the farmer, "I don't mean to be rude. It's just that you're a grown, mature man without the slightest trace of facial hair! Not only that, but you have a woman's voice. Are you . . . are you a man or a woman pretending to be a carpenter?"

The demoness knew she'd revealed herself, so, without saying another word, she turned and fled back into the forest.

I fouled up that chance! the demoness said to herself, as she fled farther into the forest. That's all right, though. I'll try again, next time with the wife!

Once again, the demoness set out to transform herself. This time she pulled off the leaves and branches of some trees and rubbed the dripping resin onto her face to affect the look of one who works with wood. Next, she swallowed some grains of charcoal to give her voice a grainy, scratchy quality. Still carrying her ax and saw, she also pulled up some grapevines and headed for the Fuxiang farm.

Mrs. Fuxiang was outside her home.

"Good woman!" cried the demoness. "Have some grapes?"

Mrs. Fuxiang looked up at the stranger speaking to her. "Thank . . . you . . . ," she said.

"I'm a carpenter, and I can fix that pigpen of yours!"

"Oh?"

"Yes, and what's more, I won't charge you a cent!"

"Why, thank you! Please step on over to the pen!" Can it be true, thought Mrs. Fuxiang, that I have found such a wonderful carpenter, one who will even fix the pen for free?

Farmer Fuxiang showed up and joined them.

"This carpenter is willing to fix the wall of the pen for free!" Mrs. Fuxiang told her husband.

On their way over to the pen, Farmer Fuxiang took a good look at the "carpenter."

"Hmm, now isn't that a bit strange!" said the farmer.

"What? What's strange?"

"Your face is rather green."

"Oh, that," replied the demoness. "Last night I had too much wine and fell asleep in a dyeing vat. What's so strange about that?"

"And your ears--I just noticed them. They're pierced, like a lady's!"

"Oh, my ears! When I was small, I was once very sick. My mother prayed night and day at the earth god's shrine and was told to pierce my ears!"

"I see," said the farmer. "Why do you wish to repair my pen for free?"

"That's the way I am, I guess," replied the "carpenter," "full of heart! I like helping people whenever I can."

Mrs. Fuxiang leaned next to her husband and whispered into his ear. "Stop questioning him! He's already offered to help us for free. How rude can you be?"

Farmer Fuxiang deferred to his wife.

"Forgive my poor manners!" said the farmer. "Please go ahead and fix the wall of the pen."

They left the demoness alone to do the promised repairs. After several days of chopping and sawing, the hole in the pen wall was repaired. What's more, a new canopy protected the pigs from above.

"There you are!" said the demoness, still in her "carpenter" disguise. "Your pigs are now snug and safe! No tiger or demon or demoness could possibly get in there now!"

The Fuxiangs thanked the "carpenter," and "he" was on his way.

The next morning, out in the pen, Farmer Fuxiang noted that one pig seemed to be missing. He counted the pigs over and over again; sure enough, a pig was missing. He looked around the pen. Could it have gotten out somehow? No. The walls of the pigpen were tight, secure.

Oh, well, he thought, scratching his head.

Then, the next day and the next day after that, he noticed more pigs were missing, one for each day since the pen had been repaired.

The farmer and his wife looked at each other and had the same thought: the mountain god. Yes, they thought, the mountain god was taking their pigs. So, the farm couple raced over to the local mountain god shrine and prayed to the god not to take their pigs.

"Please spare us!" they prayed. "We need those pigs to sell to market!"

Not much happened after that, to their relief. Then, late one night about a month later, both husband and wife were awakened by the squeals of pigs.

The farmer tiptoed out the house and peered through a tiny opening. Inside the pen was the "carpenter"!

Aha, it was that impostor all along, thought the farmer.

Before the farmer could say or do a thing, the demoness, her feet like wings, had jumped or, more correctly, flown out of the pen with a pig under her arm.

The farmer told his wife. "You can now see why she didn't have a beard!" he said.

"What a fool I was! You were right to suspect her!" she said, slapping herself in the head.

The next day, the couple inspected the pen wall more carefully. They were not surprised to find a hidden door that permitted entry into the pen. With such a door, the demoness could enter fairly quietly. She could, if need be, make a sudden escape by leaping clear over the wall.

By sundown, the husband and wife were ready for the demoness's next visit. They both waited in the pen, the husband on one side of the door, the wife on the other. Both clutched sickles. There, they quietly waited and waited and waited . . .

Deep in the darkest part of that night, the demoness decided to make a return visit and steal yet another pig.

She crept up to the cleverly disguised secret door she herself had installed, oh so quietly opened it and gingerly stepped into the pigpen, unaware that just beyond the door stood the very angry Farmer and Mrs. Fuxiang.

Ah, the demoness thought to herself, the coast is clear yet again!

She then stuck her head and neck just a bit beyond the doorway when . . .

Whup! Whup!

The husband and wife cut her head off!

From that day on, Farmer and Mrs. Fuxiang never lost a pig again!

Notes

from Minhua ji, pp. 60-65. (Complete citation can be found on 1/13/09.)

Two other Hmong tales can be found at the postings for 1/13/09 and 2/12/09.

A hallmark of Indo-European folktales--characters being totally clueless--can be found in this story with the husband and wife not truly realizing the malevolent nature of the "carpenter" until the very end, after the trickster had had unfettered access to their pigpen. The original version in Chinese has the wife happily accepting grapes from the trickster, and both husband and wife are initially oblivious to a demoness in disguise. (Of course we're not supposed to recognize Superman is really Clark Kent without the hornrimmed glasses.)

The original version does not explain the relationship with a male child's having an illness, the parent's subsequent visit to the local earth god's shrine, and then having the child's ears pierced.

Motifs: F1071.2.1, "Enormous leap"; K521.2.5, "Disguise as a carpenter"; K1810, "Deception by disguise"; and K1832, "Disguise by changing voice."

Northern Chinese Proverbs & Folk Sayings

2009-11-18T23:40:00.000-08:00

Those who wish to be wealthy, wear clothing of rough cloth; those who are destined to be poor wear expensive silks. (from Shandong. People who scrimp and save and who deny themselves the finest things in life while working hard shall end up being rich, while those who love to splurge will end up in the poor house.)

Those who live south of the river think everything north of the river is great; those who suffer from leprosy or dysentery think ulcers are great. (from Northeastern China. "The grass is always greener on the other side," some say. Perspective is everything.)

Thirty percent is the medicine; seventy percent is the recuperation. (from Shandong. Medicine alone can't do it all; the lion's share depends on rest and positive attitude.)

Like a camel surprised to see a horse's heavy load. (from Beijing. Mocking bumpkins who are easily amazed by everyday sights.)

Like one who, without pants on, chases a thief out the door--there is a time to be valiant but also a time to recognize shame. (from Shandong. Said of those who act on impulse and who never take consequences into consideration.)

Like a child flying a kite in the forest--an entanglement is sure to come. (from Beijing. Said of outcomes that are far from certain.)

Like a headless fly, flying into things. (from Beijing. Said of people who end up making themselves busier in various matters due to their not planning earlier; for things, events to become hectic due to poor or no planning. To go around "like a chicken with its head cut off.")

Trying to borrow a pig from a tiger. (from Shandong. To engage in an impossible, pointless activity. Mandarin speakers also say, "To look up a tree for a fish.")

When one carries poison in the heart, ghosts soon knock on the door. (from Shandong. The end result of living a life of sin is not pleasant.)

A blind person singing the praises of flowers in bloom. (from Northeastern China. A somewhat convoluted and contrary way of mocking a person who pretends for one reason or another not to know about something. "Out of sight, out of mind.")

A tile shard can still be used as a table leg pad. (from Shandong. Everything under the sun has a purpose, a value; nothing is totally useless.)

Like a dog's tail that's been in a bottle--it's both stinky and slimy. (from Beijing. Said of people who seem disreputable, who "give off bad vibes.")

In times of plenty, belongings are counted; in times of need, they are gone and missed. (from Shandong. What a difference an unfortunate season can make!)

Like the chicken that doesn't urinate everywhere but rather saves up its one big dropping for a particular moment. (from Beijing. Said of those who don't exhibit much promise but surprise us all later with their talents and accomplishments.)

Like a married couple quarreling--don't make anything out of it. (from Shandong. Describing any temporary difficulty that will almost always resolve itself, something that requires no panicking.)

Like a cobbler who doesn't even have a workbench; like a sorcerer who has ghosts singing at the front gate. (from Northeastern China. Said of those who are too busy in their work to see to the necessities in their own lives, just as we might remark about gardeners who allow weeds to appear in their own yards, or the carpenter not having a coffin of his own.)

Notes

from Shang Yingshi, ed. Zhongguorende suhua. (See 6/9/07 for full citation.)

The Golden Qilin (Fujian)

2009-10-30T00:00:00.001-07:00

Way up in the heavens, right at the southern gate of the Heavenly Palace, is the Golden Qilin. At times, he opens the gate a crack and slyly takes a look on us down here. When the people are bustling, when the mountains and rivers are particularly serene and beautiful, then he prepares to come down amongst us . . .

They say at the foot of the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian Province, there once lived an old couple--a spry old man of eighty years and his equally peppy wife of seventy. Now this farm couple had never had the joy of little ones tugging at their pant legs and bobbing about at their knees. In their twilight years, they raised fish and birds, watching the fish dart back and forth and enjoying the chirping and peeping of the birds. This is what had to bring them pleasure.

One day, now, out in the field, the wife felt something crawling about in her ear. She scratched and tugged at her ear, and that seemed to take care of the problem for the time being, but not really. The feeling of something inside her ear was still there. Later at night, the sensation became more intense until she couldn't stand it anymore. She got a darning needle and probed her ear with it--not a good idea but the itching and scratching was driving her crazy.

Out of her ear and onto the table hopped a tiny little bug. She looked closely at it; it looked just like a very small silkworm! She picked it up, tossed it into a dustpan, and forgot all about it.

Three days later, she discovered this insect was now outgrowing the dustpan.

Huh, she thought. How about that . . .

So she put the thing into a bamboo cage, like the ones used for chickens. Three days later, it could no longer be contained by the cage. So the very curious woman carried the now much larger insect to the garden. And then, three days after this, the insect had now turned into a man-sized creature, with the body of a full-grown man and the head of a qilin!

Needless to say, both the husband and wife were utterly astounded to find this being in their garden. However, he--the qilin--turned out to be very sweet, kind and devoted to the pair, so they could not bare to send him off. Instead, they decided to let him live with them.

The husband and wife gave him a name--the Golden Qilin.

The Golden Qilin didn't consent to remain as a guest, though. No. He was very strong and offered to put himself to work to earn his keep. He then plowed the field all by himself, without needing an ox. He then, without so much as a bowl of rice in his stomach, turned over all the soil. When he took a "break," he went out into the forest and chopped and gathered firewood. He then hoisted the entire load of wood onto his shoulders and carried it on home!

The old husband and wife loved the Golden Qilin and doted on him, giving him good food to eat and clothes to wear. In turn, he was totally devoted and respectful to them.

"That Golden Qilin!" the neighbors would say. "He is such a good boy!"

Sadly, the happy home life the old couple and the Golden Qilin shared was not to last. Not long afterwards, the old man passed away; before long, his wife did so likewise.

The Golden Qilin was now all on his own. The only people he had ever known and loved were gone.

With no one else left at the farm, he tearfully packed up, left his home, and headed away from the Wuyi Mountains to travel to distant parts.

At this time, the whole empire was in turmoil; invaders had penetrated deep into China and threatened the imperial throne itself. Posters sprang up all over the capital. They read: "The Emperor needs a stalwart and brave warrior and champion to repel the invaders! Whoever can defeat them and rescue the empire shall marry the Emperor's third daughter. He shall become the Emperor's own son-in-law!"

Now it so happened that the Golden Qilin found himself in the imperial capital. All around were gangs of men, standing around, talking about the posters, no doubt dreaming about being victorious in battle and winning the Princess, yet not one stepped forward to volunteer. They were afraid. What if I get killed in battle? they thought. What if I survive but fail to turn back the invaders? Might I not just be serving my own head upon a platter to the emperor?

Hmm . . . , thought the Golden Qilin, to defeat the invaders is to win the hand of the princess. Why not? It is worth the try.

So he immediately headed for the palace, where he presented himself before the emperor. Impressed by his appearance and brute strength, the emperor appointed the Golden Qilin as "Great Barbarian-Punishing Commander-in-Chief." As such, the Golden Qilin was given command of a great force of men and horses.

The Golden Qilin lost no time. For a whole day and night, he double marched his army down to the banks of the river where the enemy force was camped. He then engaged them in battle. The invaders were so surprised and dispirited by the very appearance and fighting skills of the Golden Qilin that they threw down their weapons and armor and fled the field!

The invaders were defeated in this one battle but were not quite ready to return to their own land yet. Their crafty leader hand picked an elite group to attack the Golden Qilin's camp.

That night, under the cover of darkness, the enemy commander led his men himself towards the camp.

"Commander! Commander!" a messenger said, appearing before the Golden Qilin's tent. "An enemy host is swiftly approaching the camp from the south!"

"Alert the men," said the Golden Qilin.

He then had all the men leave a gap in the southern part of the camp. The men next all hid along the inner perimeter of the camp, forming a giant horseshoe formation.

The enemy force reached the southern edge of the camp. The invaders found no one to defend the gate and entered unopposed.

They all looked around. The camp seem deserted. Had it been abandoned?

Then, the Golden Qilin let out a cry and had his men open up their attack. From all directions, including the far southern edge now, the emperor's men fell upon the invaders with their swords.
The Golden Qilin rode up and personally cut down the enemy commander. As for the rest of the enemy soldiers, they all fell and died were they had stood.

The Golden Qilin, the Great Barbarian-Punishing Commander-in-Chief, had won his second great victory in as many days!

The very next day, the Golden Qilin and his men met the remnants of the invading force in one final battle and scattered them, sending the panicked survivors back to where they had come from. The invasion over, the Golden Qilin led his men triumphantly back to the capital.

The emperor received the Golden Qilin at court and heard first-hand the news of the two great victories. The southern boundary was now secure; the enemy had left; the empire was safe! The emperor looked at the Golden Qilin, this strange, not-quite-animal but certainly not-quite-human . . . thing. He thought about the promise he had made to the Golden Qilin, the promise to let the Golden Qilin marry the the third princess upon a victory. He knew it was a promise he could not keep.

"Golden Qilin," said the emperor, "it is my honor to award you three thousand ounces of silver."

"Am I to wed the Third Imperial Princess, Your Imperial Highness?" asked the Golden Qilin.

"That is another matter. You may marry if you wish. "

"I appreciate the monetary award, Highness, but I am not interested in the money. I wish to marry the princess. You had made me a promise. Does an emperor not need to keep his promise?"

There was silence. Then the emperor thought of something.

"Golden Qilin," said the emperor, "truth be told, my daughter is repulsed by the sight of you. Then, last night, something happened. The Tai Bai Jin Xing contacted me in my sleep through a dream. He said you could enter a golden vessel and stay there for a period of time. In 7,749 days you should then be able to assume a human shape. On that occasion, you and my daughter could be wed. Could anything be more wonderful than that?"

The Golden Qilin was a simple being, plain spoken and without any pretensions. He heard what the emperor said, nodded his head and agreed that the princess's engagement to the Tai Bai Jin Xing, the god of Venus, was for the best. In his heart, he loved the princess, for, after all, he had prepared to marry her and so he wanted what was best for her. He actually sympathized with her, understanding that she might not want to marry so hideous a creature as he himself.

So, yes, he said, he would enter this golden vessel, this distiller, and there wait for the 7, 749 if that would make his appearance more acceptable to the third princess.

The emperor snapped his fingers and had his men lug in a large golden distiller, the vessel, and told the Golden Qilin to enter it, which he did. The mouth of the vessel was then sealed. The emperor next ordered a palace eunuch to watch over the vessel night and day and to forbid anyone from entering it or for the Golden Qilin from leaving it.

And so there he sat, waiting for the 7,749 days to pass so that he could be married to his beloved.

Soon the third princess heard about what her father had done. She was incensed, for she had rightly guessed that the emperor wanted the Golden Qilin out of sight and out of mind. Moreover, her father wouldn't mind if the Golden Qilin suffocated or starved in the process.

The princess snuck into the chamber that kept the golden vessel. Sure enough, sitting before it, arms crossed and wide awake, was the eunuch, guarding the vessel with his very life. The princess realized there was nothing she could do at the moment, so she retreated back to her quarters.

What could she do?

Meanwhile, time passed quickly. In fact, a month and a half had now passed. If he is not out soon, thought the princess, he shall be suffocated.

Truth be told, the Golden Qilin was not close to death because of suffocation. He was in a miserable state, though, weak from a lack of water. Not a drop of water had been given to him since his being sealed up in the golden vessel. If the emperor wanted to kill him, it would be very easy to do so now.

The third princess rounded up all her ladies-in-waiting. Together they tiptoed to the chamber in the wee hours of the morning. They hid and observed the eunuch guarding the vessel.

He was nodding off, at this, the hardest time of all to stay awake! I'll just close . . . my eyes . . . for a few . . . seconds, he thought. What . . . harm . . . could . . . that . . . do . . . ?

He was asleep! Quickly, the princess and her attendants pounced upon the golden vessel, dug their nails into the seal and finally pried it right off the vessel.

They looked in. What did they see? A very thirsty and very hungry but also very handsome young man!

The princess herself helped the Golden Qilin out of the vessel. They embraced and knew they had been meant for each other.

The next morning the third princess appeared at court before her father, the emperor. There, holding his hand, she presented the Golden Qilin, now a fine-looking youth.

"Father, . . . may . . . I . . . present . . . the . . . Golden . . . Qilin?"

"What!?"

Call it pride, call it shock, call it embarrassment or call it saving face. The emperor could have taken both their heads but instead banished them. The third princess and the Golden Qilin were to be sent "to the mountains," the imperial edict read, "never to reappear upon the plains."

And so the young couple left the imperial capital and headed for the Wuyi Mountains of what is today Fujian Province. There, the Golden Qilin felled some trees and built a hut for the princess and himself. From then on, he was a farmer, hoeing the soil, sowing seeds, planting, harvesting. The third princess spun, knitted and embroidered. They were never without what they needed to live, and they certainly were never without each other ever again. For the rest of their days on earth, they lived happily and continually in love.

Notes

from Huang Rongcan, Fujian minjian chuanqi, pp. 95-98. (See 7/22/07 for full citation.)

Many details of this story are reminiscent of Indo-European folktales. Namely, characters mindlessly engage in physically impossible tasks--i.e., standing vigil without attempting to sleep or entering an airtight chamber in an attempt to stay for more than 7,000 days. Moreover, the eunuch, once the Golden Qilin is sprung from his vessel prison, disappears from the story. No more is mentioned of him, no "heads-up" is given the emperor about his daughter's liberating the Golden Qilin; instead, the emperor is allowed to discover the details of the Golden Qilin's transformation the day after. In Indo-European folktales and in Chinese folktales that are cognates of them, there are consequences that are met (i.e., banishment) and those that are seemingly ignored (i.e., the eunuch's dereliction of duty). The Golden Qilin's later deification and ascent to the heavens are also left unexplained. My comments are not criticism; rather, I am just noting what the great Indo-European folktale scholar Max Luethi had previously observed in such folktales. The original text does not show any introduction of the Golden Qilin to the third princess. The only time they meet seems to be near the end, during the rescue. The text doesn't seem to justify the hero's deep love for the hitherto unseen princess in the scene where the emperor tells him that he, the Golden Qilin, will have to climb into the golden vessel for many thousands of days to make himself more presentable to the woman he loves. The original text also surprisingly has the princess and Golden Qilin kiss upon his rescue from the golden vessel, a detail I chose to leave out.

The traditional qilin is the Chinese unicorn, a mythical creature symbolic of great joy, longevity, and fecundity. It's appearance ushers in a period of harmonic and benevolent rule. So gentle is it that it will not tread upon living grass. It is said to have the body of a deer, the tale of an ox, the hooves of a horse and "forehead of a wolf" (see "Unicorn" in Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives by C. A. S. Williams; the complete citation can be found in the post for 7/22/07). It is usually depicted with a scaled body and one horn, though qilins with more than one horn sometimes appear in popular prints as well.

Tai Bai ("the Great White One") and Jin Xing ("the gold star") are one in the same: Venus. His father is Bai Di, the White Emperor, one of the Five Heavenly Emperors of Taoism, who reigns in the Western skies. Tai Bai Jin Xing also makes an appearance in the famous Chinese novel Journey to the West.

For a similar tale type, see "Winter Melon Boy" on 2/12/09; both are very similar to the Japanese folktale "Momotaro."

Motifs: T50.2, "King (emperor) does not want daughter to marry"; T97, "Father opposed to daughter's marriage"; L161, "Lowly hero marries princess."

Two Ghost Stories (Series Four) & A Shapeshifting Tale From Ancient China

2009-10-01T21:28:00.001-07:00

(1) The Tale of Ji Kang

Ji Kang was a renowned scholar of the third century A.D.; he was also an inveterate traveler, often on the road, visiting all the places he fancied seeing.

One time he walked in a southwesterly direction out of Loyang for more than ten li and found himself in a town called Huayangting. There, he decided to spend the night. He found lodging for one in an inn.

In those days Huayangting had a bad reputation as a dangerous place, many murders having been committed there. Ji Kang was aware of this but not concerned. In the middle of the night, he took out his lute and started strumming some tunes.

Suddenly a sound, much like a mumbling of pleasure, drifted through the room like a breeze of air.

"Who is there?" asked Ji Kang, continuing to play and not missing a chord.

"Just someone who died in this room long ago," said the voice. "When I heard you play, I had to come back. Your music is so beautiful. You'll have to excuse me. I didn't die a pretty death. I want so much to come face to face with you but wish you won't be revolted by what you see."

"It's very late and dark outside. Come on and appear," replied Ji Kang. "You might indeed not look very pretty, but, anyway, what do I care about how you look!"

The ghost instantly appeared and grabbed Ji Kang by the head.

"Your music has made me very, very happy, more than you can ever know. It makes me feel alive again."

Ji Kang did not act afraid. Instead, he and the ghost carried on a lively conversation about music for the rest of the night.

"Say, may I borrow your lute and play something?" asked the ghost at some point very early in the morning.

Ji Kang handed him the lute. The ghost began to play.

He's not very good at all, thought Ji Kang.

Suddenly, though, the ghost started playing a melody that undoubtedly no mortal had ever heard before, and he handled it exquisitely. Ji Kang was enraptured throughout the rest of this performance. He asked the ghost to teach him this tune. It took much of the early morning, but Ji Kang finally learned how to play it.

Of all I have ever learned to play, thought Ji Kang, nothing comes close to being as beautiful as this unearthly song.

The ghost knew how much Ji Kang valued this melody but told him he must never pass the song or its technique on to any other person. He also refused to tell Ji Kang his name.

When the darkness began to give way to light, the ghost said, "Although you and I can never meet again, I will never forget you. I now have to leave you, and it makes me very sad to do so."

With that, he disappeared.

Notes

from Hanwei liuchao guiguai xiaoshuo, Yeh Qingbing, ed. pp. 84-85. Originally from Liu Yiqing.
Liu Yiqing (403-444 A.D.) was more famous for another work, Shishuo xinyu (New Chats on What's Happening in the World).

Motifs: E378, "Ghost continues to remain in usual surroundings after death; E402.1.1.; "Ghost speaks"; E402.1.3; E554, "Ghost plays musical instrument."

(2) An Old Man and His Daughter

During the time of the Eastern Jin, in Guzhang County (now Northwest Anji County, Zhejiang Province) there lived an old man and his beautiful and unmarried daughter. They lived together up on Shen Mountain, and there they were utterly devoted to each other.

Now, a certain young man named Guang of nearby Yukang County approached the old man and asked for his daughter's hand in marriage. No. The old man refused.

And so, for a while, that was that.

One day the old man died, so his daughter had to go into town to purchase a coffin. On the road into town, she encountered Guang, who had not lost one whit of his passion for her.

"Look, " she said to him, "I'm all worn out to the bone with what I have to do to prepare for Father's funeral. If you would so kindly watch Father's remains until I can come back with a coffin, I promise to marry you." Guang quickly agreed. "Feel free," added the daughter, "to slaughter any of the pigs in the pen outside our house."

Well, that was also fine with Guang, so he hurried up to the young lady's house.

Guang had no sooner reached the front door of the Shen Mountain home when he heard from within the house the sounds of applause and laughter.

He took a peek inside.

The room was full of ghosts surrounding the old man's body, poking, pulling, disturbing and, worse, mocking it!

Guang found a long piece of wood that could be used as a club, rushed in the house with a loud roar like that of a madman, and scattered the ghosts. The ghosts scattered, running in all directions.

He then took his place by the corpse and began his vigil, breaking it once to go outside to slaughter a pig.

Near midnight, as Guang was feasting on some pork ribs, a long hand--the hand of an old ghost--reached out to Guang to beg for something to eat. Guang turned around and grabbed the old ghost by the shoulder. The more the ghost resisted, the tighter Guang held.

Outside, the rest of the ghosts had gathered.

"You greedy devil," they chanted, mocking Guang, "unable to part with one bite! You'll have your comeuppance, your heavenly payback! Just wait and see!"

Guang turned to the old ghost and said, "It must have been you who had killed this nice old man!
I bet you stole his life essence. Well, if you stole it, you can also return it! Give it back, or else I won't let go of you."

"I am not the one!" cried the old ghost. "My children are the ones who killed him." The old ghost then tilted his head towards the direction of his ghostly children. "Give 'im back his life!"

Then, moments later, the old man who had been lying virtually dead started to breathe and then to stir. Guang let go of the old ghost.

Then not long after, the daughter arrived back home, with porters in tow in carrying a coffin. Imagine her surprise to see her dear old father sitting up, alive and well!

And so a tragedy was turned into a joyous occasion.

And yes--the daughter still kept her promise. Guang and she were promptly wed!

Notes

from Hanwei liuchao guiguai xiaoshuo, p. 168. Originally by Liu Yiqing.

The old ghost in the story and his mob are reminiscent of the so-called "hungry ghosts," though he and the other specters are not specifically described as such. Suppose they are indeed hungry ghosts, otherwise known as "wandering ghosts" or the euphemism used by rural Taiwanese, "the good brothers." They are the ghosts for whom there is no one left to offer sacrifices; hence, they wander the earth vainly in search of food and drink. Hungry ghosts, the preta of Indian Buddhism and the Hinduism that preceded it, have been popularly depicted as having ultra thin necks, pinhole mouths and huge extended abdomens, all indicative of those who are starving, craving food but physically unable to ingest it (see Gods, Ghosts & Ancestors by David K. Jordan [Berkeley: University of California Press], pp. 34-35). Author Lin Liming writes that there are thirty-six varieties of hungry ghosts. Among them are the following: ghosts that "eat water," "drink blood," "eat the wind"; and ghosts of "the wide open spaces"; "the social world," and "filthy alleys" (Guiyu shijie [The world of the ghostly domain]; Xiamen: Xiamen Daxue Chubanshe, 1993, p. 60).

Motifs: E337.1.3.1., "Sounds of ghostly party"; E402.1.1.3.,"Ghosts cries & screams"; E499, "Meetings of the dead."

(3) A Filial Son

In the time of the Jin, there was an impoverished young man whose mother had just died. Because he had no money to pay for a proper funeral, he had the coffin taken up Mount Liang. There, he located a plot of land, dug a hole, and began to construct a tomb for his mother. In the evening, he slept by the fire in his makeshift camp.

He worked day and night on the tomb. He was still working on the tomb early in the evenng when a young mother carrying a baby stumbled into his camp. Could she and her baby spend the night next to the warmth of his fire? He of course said yes and continued to work on the tomb well into the darkness.

It was now late at night, and the filial son decided to turn in for the night, to go to sleep in his little camp by his mother's grave.

He turned to look at the woman and child sleeping by the fire; he didn't, however, see a woman and child.

No, what he saw was a fox cradling in its paws a black crow!

He crept up to them and beat them both to death. He then threw their remains down a pit.

The next day a man came by the camp and tomb.

"Excuse me," he asked. "Last night my wife and child were here. Do you know where they are?"

"There was no woman or child here last night. There were just a fox and a crow, and I killed them both."

"You killed my wife and baby! How can you now turn around and say that you killed a fox and a crow? Very well, then. Can you show me where you put the two bodies?"

"Follow me."

The filial son led the man to the pit. The son looked down, expecting to see the carcasses of two animals. The fox and crow were gone! Lying in the pit were a dead woman and a baby!

The husband of the dead woman grabbed the son, subdued him and tied him up. He then dragged the young man to the local government house and demanded the filial son pay with his life for the murder of the woman and her baby.

"Please, Your Honor," he told the magistrate, "don't believe this man! This is obviously a case of shapeshifting! Please bring out your best bloodhound! It will get to the bottom of this problem!"

The magistrate thought about what the filial son had said, snapped his fingers and had a bloodhound and a tracker brought in. The husband took one look at the bloodhound and promptly turned into a fox right on the spot. Before the fox could get away, though, the tracker shot it dead with an arrow.

The magistrate ordered the son released.

The son returned to the mountain and to the pit. Lying in the pit were the small carcass of a fox and the even smaller one of a crow.

Notes

from Hanwei liuchao guiguai xiaoshuo, pp. 169-170. Originally by Liu Yiqing.

This is a very early example of what would become a staple of East Asian supernatural lore, the shapeshifter. Here the primary beast is the fox, a creature that can combine the characteristics of cunning, dangerousness, voluptuousness, and charm. For two folktales about shapeshifters--respectively a tiger and a wolf--see the postings for 6/8/07 and 3/26/08. For still other stories, especially those about were-foxes, see the famous Ming dynasty anthology, Strange Stories From a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling, available in many English translations.

Crows and ravens have traditionally been considered ominous throughout the Western world but not necessarily in the Far East, where in ancient times the crow or raven was considered to be a sun symbol and a model of filial piety for the belief that it feeds its parents (Chevalier & Gheerbrant, p. 789; see 2/26/2008 for full citation.) However, folklore expert Professor Ren Cheng writes that while Manchus might revere the crow or raven and set out a sacrifice for it, the majority Han Chinese of Nanjing, Jiangsu region, would in former times upon hearing a raven or crow cry early in the morning recite a special seven-character formula to avert ill luck (Zhongguo minjian jinji [Chinese Folk Taboos], Taipei: Hanxin, 1996, p. 564).

Mynah Bird (Han)

2009-08-20T17:45:00.000-07:00

There was once a mason, plasterer and artisan named Liu Shan, and he had raised a mynah bird from the time he was just a boy. Now this was no ordinary bird, nor no ordinary mynah bird, for that matter. This mynah bird had a very lively, cheery disposition and an incredible vocabulary for a talking bird.

Every morning the mynah bird would perch on the window sill and call out to Liu Shan: "Good morning, Big Brother, good morning! The sun is up! Let's go, go, go!" Liu Shan would then rise and take the mynah bird to that day's work site.

Liu Shan and his mynah bird were an inseparable pair!

Liu Shan was hired to remodel the county magistrate's home. While up on a wall, Liu Shan discovered he had forgotten to bring a special horsehair brush. He told the mynah bird to fly back home and fetch, which the bird soon did. Then, when Liu Shan moved a bit too close to the edge of the wall, the mynah bird said, "Big Brother, take care! Big Brother, take care!"

The mynah bird was also popular with all the workers and craftsmen at the county magistrate's house, and how the bird loved the attention! The workers each took turns teaching the bird new words and songs.

All together Liu Shan, his fellow workers, and the mynah bird made up a happy, boisterous crew.

Now one day the county magistrate himself made a visit to the work site to see how his house was coming along. Liu Shan had just started the preliminary drawings for a fresco of the god of longevity upon one of the walls.

The county magistrate came over to see what Liu Shan was drawing.

"What's that supposed to be?" he asked, pointing with his nose.

"That's the god of longevity," replied Liu Shan.

Immediately the mynah bird flew down from some unseen perch.

"The god of longevity! The god of longevity!" the mynah bird chirped.

The county magistrate was delighted and stroked his long beard. "Whose bird is this?"

"It is mine," said Liu Shan.

The county magistrate stretched out his arm. "Come to me, my little friend! I shall give you something to eat." The bird landed on his arm, and off they went, the magistrate chuckling with joy, to give the mynah bird a snack.

The next day the county magistrate's attendant came up to Liu Shan. "I have been instructed by my master the county magistrate to take delivery of the mynah bird. In exchange my master is to pay you ten ounces of silver."

"Well, kindly instruct your master that my mynah bird is not for sale."

"Not for sale! Not for sale!" the mynah bird chimed in.

The attendant curled his lip, tittered a bit, and left.

That seemed to take care of that, and Liu Shan went back to work.

Then, around the time of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, Liu Shan came down with a sickness that prevented him from working. All he could do was borrow some money from the county magistrate, his salary, promising to repay him as soon as he was able.

Then, one straight month of illness became two, and two became three. Liu Shan would never be able to repay three months' wages . . .

By this time the house had been remodeled without Liu Shan's artistic touches. Upon completion of the work, the county magistrate arrived to tour his remodeled house. He came to the wall where the fresco of the god of longevity was supposed to be. The wall was blank. Liu Shan had been unable to finish the fresco, so the wall was just painted.

The county magistrate was livid.

He had Liu Shan arrested and dragged before him.

"Why, you filthy swindler!" the county magistrate said. "How dare you take my money and not do what you were hired to do!"

"I . . . I have been ill, Your Excellency . . ."

"'Ill' indeed! Give me back my five ounces of silver! Not only that, give me that mynah bird of yours!"

"Excellency, if it takes me all my life to repay my debt to you, I shall, but I am not giving my mynah bird away!"

The county magistrate had Liu Shan beaten and tossed into a jail cell.

Now the mynah bird had been away from home when Liu Shan was arrested. It flew back to an empty home, not knowing that Liu Shan couldn't, wouldn't be coming back. Soon, the bird tired of waiting for Liu Shan to return, so it just took off, hoping to find its master. It flew and flew all over the town, over all the roofs of homes, shops, inns, taverns.

Then, while resting on a branch, it turned its head towards a hole in the brick wall of a building, the town jail, and there, it spotted Liu Shan inside, sitting with his head in his bloodied hands in a cell. Closing its wings right against its body, it forced itself through the hole and into the jail cell.

"Mynah bird, my mynah bird!" cried Liu Shan. "You don't know what I have gone through because of you! Look what the magistrate has done to me. He has broken my fingers, one by one, beaten me and left me here--all because I would not give you up to him. You have been mine since you first hatched; I have raised and taken care of you. How could I ever let someone take you from me?"

"Wu, wu . . ." was all the mynah bird could say.

From that day on, the mynah bird would visit Liu Shan daily in his cell, chatting with him and trying to cheer him up. It was almost like old times again--the two of them together. However, there was a problem: the jailer happened to peek in on Liu Shan and saw the mynah bird there with him. The jailer then notified the county magistrate, who then came to the cell.

Seeing the magistrate, the bird immediately flew to a rafter.

"County magistrate!" cried the mynah bird. "You oppress the people! You'll never get me!"

The county magistrate gnashed his teeth in anger as he helplessly watched the bird go out the hole from which it had entered and fly off up into the sky.

The county magistrate sent out an order to all his men--"Bring me that mynah bird alive!" Soldiers and yamen guards then scoured the countryside and town searching for the mynah bird.

The mynah bird seemed to have disappeared.

Then, that same night, the mynah bird flew back to the cell to see its master. It once again made squeezed its way into the hole in the wall.

"Got you!" a voice cried.

A net dropped over the cell window and hole, and hidden guards rushed into the cell to trap the mynah bird now caught inside the jail wall.

Caged, the mynah bird was brought before the county magistrate.

"I have you now, mynah bird," he said. "I plan to roast and to eat you. What do you think of that?"

"You are a cannibal, a vampire!" chirped the mynah bird. "One day a homeless dog shall eat from your skull!"

"Take this thing away!" bellowed the county magistrate. "Take it away to the kitchen and let the cook prepare it!"

In the kitchen, the cook carefully plucked each of the mynah bird's feathers and put the naked little creature upon the chopping board. When the cook was distracted by the oil beginning to boil in the frying pan, the mynah bird quickly flapped its wings to fly away. It couldn't fly, of course, so it hopped off the chopping board and onto the floor.

The cook was just in time to see the mynah bird scurry away down into the drain.

Down, down into the drain went the mynah bird until it was able to find itself a little niche so that it wouldn't be washed away by the water surely to come. There it stayed until the beginning of spring, surviving on the bits of food washed down the drain with the garbage and dirty water. By this time its feathers had grown back.

And then came the day when no one was around in the kitchen. The mynah bird emerged from its hiding place, unfurled its wings, and flew out the window, to search again for Liu Shan.

Unknown, of course, to the mynah bird, Liu Shan had escaped from his jail cell and was now hiding deep in the mountains.

Meanwhile, the mynah bird flew around and around, looking for its master. In town some kind of celebration was taking place. Men were beating drums and cymbols, and crowds of people were milling about. The mynah bird flew to the roof of a building to watch all the bustling activity.

And there, below, was the county magistrate! What was he doing? He was entering the city god's temple to offer incense and prayers. There, before the statue of the city god, he lit his incense and knelt upon the floor to kowtow.

"If all those you have harmed come forward to testify about your corruption and abuse, woe unto you!"

Who said that? In the courtyard, there was just the county magistrate and the statue of the city god. The county magistrate looked around, sweated, and continued his prayers.

"Hear me speak! Admit your crimes, and I shall go easier on you. If you try to cover up all the evil you have done, you will have been better off being born as a dog!"

The county magistrate increased his kowtowing with a feverish pitch, banging his head upon the floor with the energy you'd use to grind up dried garlic with a mortar and pestle. The pain was awful, and he cried like a baby; however, the head-banging continued. Maybe, just maybe, if he prayed earnestly enough, the god would be satisfied . . .

"Come forward to admit your crimes and receive your punishment so that your burden can be lightened!"

Faster and faster did the county magistrate hit his head upon the floor!

"Do this now. First, in front of me, pluck out every hair on your face so that you can pass among the common people without distinction . . . "

Still on his knees, the county magistrate began pulling out all his whiskers until his aching face was a smooth as a baby's bottom.

"Second, kowtow 365 times before me now to learn about humility and to remind yourself never again to abuse the people!"

The county magistrate kowtowed another 365 times with such vigor he nearly upset the altar. He stood up, reeling, his head battered and bleeding.

He slowly staggered his way out the temple. Just as he reached the exit to the courtyard, a voice called out to him.

"Hee, hee! Magistrate, it is I!"

He swung around, nearly toppling over, grabbing onto a pillar for support. There, on a rafter, sat the mynah bird.

"Last year, you had my feathers plucked; this year, I have your beard plucked. Last year, you broke my master's body; this year, I break your piggish head! So long!"

The county magistrate watched the mynah bird fly away from the rafter, out of the temple and into the sky.

It finally dawned on him that the voice he had heard earlier was not the city god's but the mynah bird's; however, there was not a thing he could do about it.

Notes

from Jia & Sun, Zhongguo minjian gushixuan, Vol. 2, pp. 160-163. (For full citation, see 7/22/07.)

This is a very famous Han (the Chinese ethnic majority) folktale which is anthologized in Pu Songling's Strange Stories From a Chinese Studio. (A number of translations exist, including John Minford's English translation published by Penguin.) This story, collected during the Cultural Revolution, bears traces of proletarian revising in the increasingly sophisticated and politically conscious utterings of the mynah bird when it dupes the venal magistrate in the temple. I suspect the politicized language was added to make the story conform to the party line of that era.

In a land where beard growth is generally sparse, the possession of a beard, itself a symbol of masculinity, power, sagacity, etc., would be something of which to be proud. Hence, the loss of the beard, especially in which one painfully plucks one's own beard, would have to be extremely galling and demeaning.

Motifs: B211, "Animal uses human speech"; B211.3, "Talking bird"; J1117, "Animal as trickster"; J1118, "Clever bird"; J2465, "Disastrous following of instructions." In addition, the story has a variation of K1971, "Man hides behind statue and pretends to be god."

The Fabulous Porcelain Bed -- a Legend From Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province

2009-08-13T17:57:00.000-07:00

Long, long ago, some emperor sent an imperial edict to the famed porcelain potters of Jingde Town: "Make me a bed of your porcelain ware that will keep me cool in the summer and warm in the winter. You have one year's time upon receiving my command."

There was also an additional comment: "Failure to meet the deadline will result in death."

Minister Qin, a venal court high official, personally delivered the imperial message.

It was clearly an impossible task, but what could the good porcelain makers of Jingde Town do? They got started--that's what they did! If the project failed, would one be singled out for execution? a pair? a whole clan of potters? They didn't know, so the whole town of potters got together as one team to produce this porcelain bed demanded by the emperor back in Yanjing.

They constructed a bed of fine unburnt clay and loaded it into a big kiln. They then watched and waited . . .

When the time was up, they took the bed out. It was a total failure: the bed had failed to be baked evenly!

They started over and created a new unbaked porcelain bed. The result was the same--again, again, and again.

To make matters worse, Minister Qin and his retinue continued to stay in town, making the rounds, demanding to be treated to wine and food by each family of porcelain makers. The overtaxed townspeople put up with him, for one word of complaint, just one sneeze the wrong way, would be enough for him to send a note back to the emperor about the "rebellious peasants."

Now just outside of town was an old experienced but retired potter. It was said that if he created a porcelain bird, it would fly and chirp! That was his reputation. A delegation of people from town made the trek to his home.

"Master!" the spokesman for the group said to the old potter on his front porch. "Surely you've heard that the emperor has commanded us to create a porcelain bed for him that will keep him cool in the summer and warm in the winter. If we fail to do so within the year, we die. We've tried and tried and can't get it right! Please help us!"

For the longest time, the old man said nothing. Then he sighed and motioned for the twenty or so people to follow him into his modest house.

The group entered the house and looked on in shock: there in the house were a number of porcelain beds unable to be baked and tempered. The old master had also been trying to create a porcelain bed but to no avail.

They thanked the old man for trying to do his part. Then, spiritless, the group turned around and trudged out the house in silence.

The old potter then decided he would commit himself to finding a way to make a successfully baked porcelain bed. He went back to work, not stopping for rest or food.

"Father!"

He turned around. His only daughter, a beautiful young girl, was standing behind him.

"Please get some rest and food to eat! I am worried about you."

"No, Daughter. Papa has to work and find a way to bake the porcelain bed!"

Now one day, the daughter fell asleep while sitting by the kiln. She then had a dream. In the dream, a very old white-bearded man came up to her from behind and tapped her shoulder.

"Yes?"

"Do you want your daddy to find a way to make a porcelain bed?"

"Yes, I do!" she replied in the dream.

"Well, I know of a way! Shall I tell it to you?"

"Please tell me!"

"Very well. The next time you load the kiln with a bed of unburnt clay, you must enter the kiln as well and be fired along with the bed. Are you afraid to die?"

"No!"

"Can you then enter the flames of the kiln along with the bed?" asked the mysterious old stranger.

"Yes, I can!"

The old potter saw his daughter talk in her sleep by the kiln. When she awoke, he asked her about it.

"What were you shouting about, Daughter?"

"Father, do you have another bed ready for the kiln?"

"Yes. Why?"

"The bed can be fired today, successfully."

"Are you still talking in your sleep?"

"Father! Is there a bed ready or not?"

"Yes, yes, there is, for what good it will do! Feel the heat. There's one in the kiln right now."

The girl leaped to her feet and ran into her room. She emerged not long after, clad in a new flowery dress, her hair combed and brushed, with sweet oil applied. She approached the front of the kiln.

"Daddy!" she cried and then plunged right into the mouth and flames of the kiln.

The fire inside than surged upwards and outwards, burning bolder and redder than before.

The old man couldn't believe his eyes and sprang forward to the kiln, too late.

"My daughter . . . my daughter . . . "

When the bed was brought out to cool, it was discovered the firing had been absolutely successful. The curled dragon motif on the bed was said to be able to move its tail, while the inlaid phoenix motif could supposedly flap its wings.

Minister Qin thus took possession of the bed and had it loaded aboard a ship bound for the North. He daydreamed about the emperor ennobling him, granting him vast tracts of land. In his eagerness to return to the imperial palace, he ordered the captain to go full speed ahead, ignoring cautions.

The ship entered the waters of Poyang Lake, Jiangxi. Right in the middle of the lake, a sudden electrical storm arose, flinging its lightning bolts down to earth. One bolt hit the bed, secured on top of the ship, shattering it into hundreds of shards, piercing Minister Qin, causing him to bleed from "the seven orifices." He fell down dead amongst the remnants of the porcelain bed.

It is said that to this day the grateful pottery families of Jingde Town all have beautiful images of the master potter's daughter placed on their own kilns.

Notes

from Jia & Sun, Zhongguo minjian gushixuan, Vol. 1, pp. 114-117. (For full citation , see 7/22/07.)

This story is a variation of another that long ago appeared in English: "The Voice of the Bell" from The Sunken City and Other Tales From Round the World by James McNeill (New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1975; pp. 132-137), originally a reprint of a British book published in 1959. In this version, Kuan-yu, minister to the historical Ming Emperor Yung-lo (Yongle) (1360-1424 A.D.) is ordered to cast a huge bell the peals of which should be heard for many miles around. After two attempts at casting the bell, Emperor Yung-lo sends word he will not tolerate any more failure upon pain of death. In the end, Kuan-yu's daughter Ko-ngai, inspired by the words of a fortuneteller, jumps into the cauldron to enable the bell to be cast successfully and to save her father's head.

Mr. McNeill's version is beautifully told, as are all the other tales in his anthology. I heartily recommend his book if you can be lucky enough to find a copy.

"Jingde Town" is Jingdezhen, a world-famous location for fine porcelain china.

Porcelain pillows first appeared during the Sui dynasty (581-618 A.D.), but I haven't been able to find any citations about entire porcelain beds as either actual or legendary objects.

Foundation myths and legends suggest that a landmark (i.e., bridge, building) for some reason required a human sacrifice embedded within or otherwise melded or contained within the landmark in order for it, the landmark, to exist or to be sustained. In McNeill's version as well as this one, a beautiful girl (i.e., a virgin) willingly immolates herself to allow, respectively, a bell to peal more sweetly or a porcelain bed to contain the needed essence of goodness and chastity that would befit such a marvelous creation from which much is to be expected.

The Chinese title refers to the "longfeng porcelain bed," longfeng, "dragon and phoenix," being a metaphor for "conjugal."

For another story in which a girl sacrifices herself so that others may live, see the Hezhen story "The Stone Girl," 2/13/08.

The grisly bleeding "from the seven orifices" is heavenly retribution, according to Chinese folklore, supposedly reserved for those --typically, high officials--who had committed evil in their lifetimes and may have covered it up.

Motifs: D1810.8.2, "Information received through dream"; S261, "Foundation sacrifice"; W28, "Self-sacrifice."

Ghost Stories From Ancient China -- Series Three

2009-07-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

(1) Father Comes Home

In Wuxing (Wuxing Town, Xinye County, Henan Province or Wuxing County, Zhejiang Province), there lived a farmer, his wife and their two sons.

Now one day this farmer went up to his two sons who were plowing in the fields and started berating them. Not only that but he proceeded to beat them mercilessly. The sons, hurt and bewildered, left the field and went straight home. There, they told their mother what had happened.

Later, when the father had returned home, the mother asked him about it.

Simply put, he was devastated; he would never treat his two sons that way. No, he insisted, he had not been the one scolding and beating his two sons in the field. It must have been some devilish ghost playing a prank in the manner they were known to do so, by impersonation.

He took his two sons aside.

"Listen," he said, "if someone who is my spitting image should ever again come up to you while you two are at work and try to harm you, take an ax and kill him. It will be a ghost overstepping his bounds, and you will teach him a lesson."

That seemed to take care of that.

Some time later, though, the farmer had time to think over his words. The more he thought about what he had advised his sons, the more alarmed he became.

Why, he thought, my sons might mistake me for a ghost anytime I go out to help them with the plowing! No, I'd better caution them about acting too rashly.

He then went out to where they were plowing. Before he had gotten too close to them, his sons, assuming the ghost had once again impersonated their father, immediately cut him down with an ax. They then buried the body under the tall grasses.

Now the real ghost had witnessed all this. He just simply transformed himself into the likeness of the farmer and returned home at the end of the work day.

"Congratulate our sons when they return home," he told the unsuspecting wife. "They took care of that annoying ghost once and for all!"

The sons soon came home and, like their mother, never suspected the older man in the house was not the farmer whose body lay decaying under the soil but rather the cunning ghost impersonating him. As if all this weren't bad enough, the ghost stayed with the family for many years without raising anyone's suspicions.

One day years later, a traveling Taoist priest happened to pass by the ghost masquerading as the farmer. The priest went directly to the farmer's wife.

"Madam, I need to tell you something," said the priest. "Your husband has an evil qi about him."

The two sons overheard this conversation and instantly ran out to tell the "farmer," who was absolutely enraged. He returned to the farmhouse as the priest had just stepped outside.

"That liar!" he screamed to the wife. "That priest is spreading filthy lies!"

The priest heard this and stormed inside the house.

The "farmer" immediately changed back into his original form, that of an old fox. The fox then scurried under the bed. Everyone in the house cornered the fox in its hiding place and succeeded in pulling it out and killing it.

The two sons then made sure their real father was exhumed and buried properly.

That's not the end of the story, however. Not long after, one of the sons took his own life, while the other son sank into deep despondency, became ill and eventually died.

Notes

from Guiguai xiaopin, pp. 51-52.

Originally from Bowu zhi (The Annals of Strange Things) by Zhang Hua (232-300 A.D.) of the Jin dynasty (265-420 A.D.)

This story is reminiscent of "Qin Jubo" (see "The Tale of Uncle Ju," in "Ghost Stories From Ancient China--Series One," 3/26/09), and like other ghost stories, it shows the inevitably fatal consequences of interacting with ghosts. Here, however, as with the Qin Jubo story, the term "ghost" must be used flexibly. The "ghost" in this story is not yet in the codified form recognizable to most people around the world--the misty and/or partially transparent image or form of a recently or long ago deceased person. It can also be "killed," an ultimate fate that escapes the already dead ghosts. Here, the "ghost" is the malevolent shapeshifting fox goblin known throughout Chinese, Japanese and Korean folklore. There is no intimation of this "ghost's" connection to a dead human. However, one thing remains true: this entity is a thoroughly evil and implacable foe of the living, qualities traditionally ascribed to many, if not most, East Asian ghosts.

The compilers of Guiguai xiaopin write that ghosts (presumably those that are shapeshifters or

revenants) are "bored" and thus mercilessly torment and kill for fun (53). To this we can add that ghosts, as the dead, are the polar opposite of the living and, therefore, if they manifest themselves after death, are very much unresigned to their status and harbor ill will to the living.

Motifs: A13370.2, "Disease caused by ghost"; D42.2, "Spirit takes man's shape."

(2) The Wedding Must Go On

Zhang Yacheng, a licensed scholar of Xinjian County, Fujian Province, had a peculiar hobby when he was younger: he enjoyed making miniature suits of armor, hair clasps and the what-not out of gold foil paper and using them as playthings, keeping them in his room, never letting anyone see them. Apparently he possessed some skill, though no one else was supposed to know about it.

Imagine his surprise when one day a thirty-something year old woman knocked on his door.

"Yes?" he asked. "How may I help you?"

"I want to commission you to make some gold foil ornaments for me."

"Oh? What kind of ornaments?"

"Hairpins, bracelets, pearl ornaments for the hair . . . "

"I see," said Zhang. "May I ask what for?"

"Wedding ornaments . . . for my daughter to wear."

Zhang thought the woman had to be joking, but she appeared very earnest and assured Zhang he would be paid for his work. He accepted the job and said no more about it as she left.

The young woman returned the next day.

"My surname is Tang," she said, "perhaps related to the family of the mandarin surnamed Tang who lives in the nearby village. I need to ask a favor of you."

"Surely."

"On this strip of paper, please have someone write in a nice calligraphic hand the name of that official, my kinsman, so I can place it on one of the wedding lanterns, as is the custom."

Again Zhang thought the woman was joking with him. Why would she need him to do this? Why not approach her distant relative, the local official, herself and have him or someone else do this? But he played along.

"Allow me, please, Miss Tang. I shall write the name for you."

Supressing his mirth, he went ahead and wrote the name of the official on the strip of paper. The woman, satisfied, then left.

Several days passed. The designated day for the woman to pick up her daughter's wedding accouterments had arrived. Zhang handed them over to her; she in turn paid Zhang very handsomely with hundreds of certificates redeemable in silver and many lucky wedding biscuits. They thanked each other and the woman left.

That was that, or so Zhang had thought.

Early the next morning, after arising Zhang went to look at the payment he had received from the woman. What had been many fancy gourmet biscuits were actually individual little clods of dirt. What had been silver certificates were actually partially silver-foil embossed "hell bank notes," the money reserved and then burned for the dead.

Now Zhang Yacheng realized the truth; the woman had been a ghost.

Several days after that, everyone in town was woken from his or her dreams at an unholy time early in the morning by musicians blaring trumpets and beating drums. The racket went on and on, and it all seemed to emanate from one place: the top of the hill where there no houses but only a cemetery with its forlorn graves.

A lonely hilltop cemetery with loud music in the wee hours of the morning . . . nobody in his right mind would be up there . . . nobody but ghosts . . .

Some local foolhardy teenage boys decided to creep up the hill to look at the ghost musicians performing for what--a ghostly funeral? They did so and saw that the spectral musicians were wearing the red sashes worn by those attending a wedding, and on the dragon lantern illuminating the show was the strip of paper written in the nice cursive writing of Zhang Yacheng, displaying the name of an official, a local mandarin, a man surnamed Tang . . .

Notes

from Guiguai xiaopin, pp. 75-77; Yuan Mei, Gao shenme gui. (What the devil are you doing?). Wang Huan, ed. Taipei: Guanshe chubanshe, 2004; pp. 58-60.

This not terribly ancient story is from Qing dynasty (1644-1911) writer Yuan Mei (1716-1797), a collector and compiler of ghost lore. We first get the impression that Zhang Yacheng is inviting trouble with his habit of playing with foil paper, a medium used in preparation for "Bank of Hell" ghost bills burned as offerings to the dead. His misuse of such an item ensures a visit from a ghost.

Yuan Mei himself, commenting on this story, suggests it shows that the world of the dead is not far removed from that of the living in that the desire "to keep up with the Joneses," to maintain a front or to keep face, is an undying human need for both the living and the dead. Here, the ghost mother, originally from a less wealthy background, desperately wishes to have the aura of respectability and affluence attached to her daughter's name through the imprimatur of a living or (more probably) now dead mandarin.

Apparently Zhang Yacheng comes out none the worse after his repeated encounters with a dead woman. Yuan Mei notes that later in life Zhang Yacheng entered the ranks of the licentiates after passing his literary examinations and went on to become a renowned local scholar.

Motifs: D476.2.1, "Food changed to dirt"; E334.2, "Ghost haunts burial spot"; E402.4, "Sound of ethereal music"; E554, "Ghosts play musical instruments."

(3) The Disciple of Shixu

In Wuxing (now, Wuxing County, Zhejiang Province) there lived a very influential man named Shixu who had a student whose name is lost to us.

This student was a very stubborn fellow, always blathering about his opinions and never diverging from them. One of his favorite topics with which to argue was ghosts. "There are no ghosts!" he would say.

One day, probably by the road, this student encountered a traveler wearing a white upper garment. They exchanged greetings, and the traveler stopped to chat. Before long, the student of Shixu brought up his favorite topic--the non-existence of ghosts--and a debate soon commenced. They argued and argued, well after the sun had already set behind the trees.

In this debate, the student got the better of the visitor.

During a lull in the argument, the visitor turned to the student and said, "You're a real tongue wagger, aren't you? I suppose you think you know just about everything. You've got me where I can't reply to your position. Very well.

"In any case, allow me to tell you something. I happen to be a ghost myself. What do you have to say about that?"

The student chuckled and dismissively asked, "So you're a ghost. Very good. Answer me this: what do ghosts want out of us?"

"What do ghosts want? It's very simple. We collect lives, lives from those about to die. In fact I'm here to collect your life. Tomorrow noon your time shall be up."

Now the student was scared, where before he had been smug, cocky.

"Please spare me! Don't let me die!" he pleaded.

"Hmm . . .," said the ghost. "Is there anyone around here who resembles you?"

"Yes! Yes! At Shixu's estate there's a military officer who looks a great deal like me!"

"All right. Tomorrow we shall go there together, and I'll have a look . . . "

The next day the student led the now invisible ghost to Shixu's estate. There, the student announced his intention to visit this military officer he was supposed to resemble. The student was admitted inside with, of course, the invisible ghost following him all the way. The student sat down on a chair across from his friend, the officer, and the two began to chat.

While they were chatting, the ghost took out a metallic needle and, stepping behind the officer, jabbed the needle right into the man's skull.

Immediately the officer cried out, "I have a headache!"

The headache grew worse, and by noontime, the poor man had already died.

Notes

from Hanwei liuchao guiguai xiaoshuo, p. 46; originally from Soushenji by Gan Bao.

Motifs: *D1855.2, "Death postponed if substitute can be found"; E247, "Ghost kills man"; E421, "Invisible ghost"; P316, "Man killed in friend's place."

(4) An Unnamed Husband and Wife

Long ago there once were a couple whose names have been lost through the years.

Early one morning the wife got out of bed earlier than her husband and went outside to wash her face. Unknown to her, her husband got up shortly afterward to bathe.

Neither one encountered the other outside.

The wife returned inside and peeked in the bedroom. Sure enough, she saw what looked like her husband still sleeping. Not wishing to disturb him, she quietly got ready to leave to do some chores.

As she was ready to go out the door, however, the servant boy came inside the house and took a mirror.

"What are you doing with the mirror?" the woman of the house asked.

"The master said I could use it," replied the boy.

"Now how could that be? He's inside the bedroom sleeping. How could he give you permission to borrow the mirror while he is asleep?"

The boy looked befuddled.

"I was outside just now and asked him! He's still out there. Let me go get him!"

Before she could say anything, the servant boy shot outside and immediately came back in with the husband, who looked very concerned.

Together the husband and wife entered the bedroom.

There, on the bed, was the split image of the husband, still sleeping away. In complete disbelief, the husband approached his twin lying motionless upon the bed. The husband bent down to touch his counterpart; as he did so, his hands, arms and the rest of him gradually merged with those of his lookalike until both were once again one person.

Needless to say, both the wife and husband were totally shaken and left speechless by this event.

Shortly after, the husband suddenly came down with an illness from which he was never to recover.

Notes

from Hanwei liuchao guiguai xiaoshuo, p. 48; originally from Soushenji by Gan Bao.

By now we can see it is just about axiomatic that to encounter a ghost or, here, a doppelganger, is usually a fatal occurrence. The doppelganger phenomenon is also highly unlucky, frequently fatal, in German folklore as well. A similar story of bilocation, but one with a much happier outcome--"Chunmei's Journey"--can be found at the posting for 7/15/07.

Motifs: A13370.2, "Disease caused by ghost"; E723, "Wraiths separate from body."

(5) Chen Jia

Chen Jia had lived in Beixiangting, Wu Prefecture, Haiyan County, Jiangsu Province, and then, sometime during the reign of the Jinyuan emperor (276-323 A.D.), he moved to nearby Huating.

Just outside Huating, by the eastern marshes, he spotted a huge snake while hunting. It was enormous, being six, seven or even eight zhang long, lying just below a ridge. It looked like a long boat turned on its side, and it was black, yellow and other colors.

He shot an arrow at the creature, killing it, but then turned and left the area in a great hurry.

Back at home, he thought about his encounter with the huge serpent and was overcome with an inexplicable uneasiness over the matter. He decided not to tell anyone about what he had seen or done.

Three years passed . . .

Chen Jia, along with a local Huating man, was again out hunting in the marshes near the same area where he had killed the huge snake three years before.

Remembering the event that had so shaken him up several years before and without really thinking, he turned to the Huating man and said, "You know it was right over here that I had once killed a gigantic serpent a good number of zhang long!"

His companion was astounded that such a thing had happened; he had known Chen Jia for some time and had never heard him say a word about the serpent.

That night, Chen Jia had a dream. In that dream, a man in black with a black scarf wrapped around his head approached him.

"I was once resting on the path along the ridge," said the man in black, "minding my own business and not harming a soul, when you came along and killed me. Why? What had I ever done to you?

"I had just been sleeping off after being drunk. I never saw the face of the man who had killed me. I pledged to myself to wait for this enemy of mine who had done this to me. Now, three years later, you returned to the spot to brag openly of your deed! Today, you brought all this upon yourself . . . "

Chen Jia woke up, trembling and soaked with sweat, his heart madly palpitating, his intestines in knots. Before the day was over, he was dead.

Notes

from Hanwei liuchao guiguai xiaoshuo, p. 56; originally from Soushenji by Gan Bao.

Snakes are generally looked upon with suspicion and dread but also acknowledged to be wise, due to their proximity to the ground and knowledge of what lies beneath the earth. Snake or serpent spirits supposedly can foretell the future and may take human form, as so many Chinese folktales and legends attest. The most famous is, of course, the legend and opera, Madame White Snake.

One zhang is 3 1/3 meters.

Motifs: B731.10, "Multicolored serpent"; D391, "Serpent transformed to person"; E265.3, "Death caused by ghost"; E526, "Ghost of snake."

Stories of Filial Children -- Series Two

2009-05-22T23:21:00.000-07:00

(1) Cai Shun (Later Han Dynasty)

Cai Shun of the Later Han dynasty (c. A.D. 23-220 A.D.) was from Ancheng (now Ru'an County, Henan Province).

When Cai Shun was very young, his father died. Cai Shun then served his mother as a very filial son.

Around the year 17, the nation was in turmoil. The brief rule of the Xin Dynasty (9-23 A.D.) had interrupted the Han; the Chimei rebels roamed the countryside; and there was famine everywhere.

Young Cai Shun had to go off into the backwoods to pick mulberries so that his mother and he wouldn't starve. Whenever he went off to get food, he always took two sacks--one for red mulberries and one for black mulberries.

One day on a road in the forest, Cai Shun came face-to-face with a pair of Chimei bandits. They had their swords out, barring his path.

"What's in those two bags of yours?" one of them asked.

"One bag contains red mulberries," he answered. "The other, black."

"And why do you need both kinds?" the other bandit asked.

"The black ones are sweet; they're for my mother. The sour red ones are for me."

The two fearsome bandits were moved by Cai's filial devotion to his mother. They let him pass but not before giving him three big cups of rice and a whole ox leg to take home.

Notes

from Sanshiliuxiao, p. 28 This is story #9 in the Wu edition.

The Chimei ("Red Eyebrows") were insurrectionists who opposed the Xin with their own Han candidate for emperor. They helped end the Xin dynasty of Wang Mang and went on to war with armies that supported other Han emperors. In the end, the Chimei lost out in the power struggle. Their name derived from their painting their eyebrows red as a way of recognizing each other in battles.

(2) Huang Xiang (Later Han Dynasty)

Huang Xiang of the Later Han Dynasty (c. 23-220 A.D.) came from Anlong, Jiangsha (now, Anlong County, Hubei Province). He lived during the reign of Emperor Yongping and died during the reign of Emperor Yanguang (58-124 A.D.).

At the age of nine, Huang Xiang lost his mother. From then on, he continually served his father as a devoted filial son, never missing an opportunity to work for or to help his father.

Of the many things he did for his father, we can note one special thing in particular.

In each evening of the summer, he would fan his father's mat and pillow to cool them off for his father, before the older man turned in for the evening. In each evening of the winter, he would lie down first on his father bed to warm up the mat and pillow for his father.

He also heeded his father's call to study diligently. As he grew older, he became famous for his erudition. In the era when Loyang was the national capital, a proverb circulated through the city: "Under heaven there is no one else like Huang Xiang."

During the reign of Emperor He, Huang Xiang became an official. In his later years, during the reign of Emperor An, Yanguang, he served as a prefect in Wei.

Notes

from Sanshiliuxiao, p. 36; Xiaodao, p. 58. The story is #13 in the Wu edition.

This and #4 below are particularly famous stories.

(3) Xun Guan (Jin Dynasty)

Xun Guan of the Jin Dynasty came from Yingchuan, Linyan (now, Linyan County, Henan Province).

In the year 315 A.D., while her father, Xun Song, served as prefect of the city-fortress Xiangyang, Hubei Province, the fortress was surrounded by the rebel troops of General Du Zeng.

The defending garrison was short of men and supplies.

The situation was very grim!

There were reinforcements under the command of Prefect Xun's old subordinate General Shi Lan, over in Pingnan; however, without anyone's being able to get word to General Shi of the garrison's plight, those reinforcements would never come to help. All those men under loyal General Shi might as well not exist!

Filial daughter Xun Guan saw the grave concern on her beloved father's face. Now Xun Guan was no ordinary, pampered thirteen year old daughter of a high official. She had learned martial arts from her father and was an accomplished rider. So she did something very bold. Without her father's knowledge, in the darkness of the night, she led a suicide team of eighteen veteran riders out from one of the fortress's passages. She and her riders streamed past a gauntlet of enemy troops, breaking through General Du's circle and onto the road for Pingnan!

As soon as she arrived in Pingnan, she immediately reported the situation to old family friend General Shi. As General Shi was concerned he didn't have enough men to attack General Du's force, he contacted nearby General Zhou Fang for support. With General Zhou's troops, General Shi now had over 3,ooo men. This force set out for Xiangyang. Once General Shi and his men arrived within site of the rebel camp, the besiegers instantly lost heart. The entire rebel force of General Du's army dissolved before the walls of Xiangyang, with the rebels fleeing in all directions.

The siege was finally over!

The enemy was defeated and peace came to Xiangyang--all thanks to a gallant thirteen year old girl named Xun Guan.

Notes

from Sanshiliuxiao, p. 44., #17 in Wu edition.

This is a very rare story of a daughter; the vast majority of the stories deal with boys.

(4) Fan Xuan (Jin Dynasty)

Fan Xuan of the Jin dynasty was originally from Chen Liu County (Henan Province). He was well known as a scholar during the reign of Emperor Cheng (circa 335 A.D.).

When he was small, he showed much filial devotion to his parents.

Once, when he was eight, he was in his family's garden, pulling up vegetables when suddenly he scraped his finger. He stood in the garden, crying.

"Are you in pain?" one of his parents asked him.

"No." He continued to cry. "I'm not crying because I am in pain. It is because the Classic of Filial Piety teaches us that our bodies, hair and skin all come from our parents and that we cannot harm them. I've hurt you, my parents. That's why I cry."

Fan Xuan believed he had injured his own beloved parents when he had hurt his finger and was thus not filial. Contrast him with all the belligerent, morally confused, wine-swilling, gambling, hedonistic ruffians around today! Their conduct is anything but filial, and they need to get on the correct path.

Notes

from Sanshiliuxiao, p. 46. This is story #18 in the Wu edition.

True filial, thus, entails having one take care of one's body as one's flesh and blood come from parents. The very last two sentences have been translated and adapted from the very end of the story and represent no extraneous moralizing or editorializing on my part!

The Classic of Filial Piety dates back to 400 B.C. and contains a series of conversations between Confucius and his disciple Zeng Zi.

(5) Xie Dingzhu (Ming Dynasty)

Xie Dingzhu of Guangchang, Datong (now Laiyuan County, Hebei Province) was born in 1401 A.D., during the reign of the Yongle Emperor of the Ming (1360-1424).

One day when Dingzhu was twelve, his mother grabbed Dingzhu's infant brother and went after an oxen that had wandered away. Dingzhu followed along, carrying a club.

While the three were out on the road, a tiger suddenly appeared and attacked the mother. It clamped its jaws onto her ankle and began to drag her away. The woman tossed her infant son onto the road and cried for Dingzhu to help her.

Dingzhu rushed the tiger and hit it repeatedly with his club. Finally, the tiger let go of the mother and retreated back from where it had come. Dingzhu then went to the assistance of his mother. He picked his brother up and let his mother lean her weight against him as the three headed back home.

Halfway home, the tiger reappeared! Again it tried to bite the mother, and, again, Dingzhu fought it off with his club.

The tiger then ran off. The three continued home.

Yet again the tiger returned, this time very stealthily, and attacked the mother from behind, biting her ankle. Dingzhu picked up a large rock and flung it at the tiger. This time the tiger left for good.

With Dingzhu's help, everyone made it home safely.

News of Dingzhu's heroism traveled to the court of the Yongle Emperor. The emperor ordered the young man to Beijing, where Dingzhu was granted a personal audience with the imperial monarch, who commended him for his bravery. Xie Dingzhu was also given a reward of silver and rice. Finally a stela proclaiming Dingzhu's filial piety and courage was erected outside his home.

Notes

from Shanshiliuxiao, p. 70, #30 in the Wu edition.

Xiaodao also has a very similar story from the earlier Jin dynasty (265-420 A.D.). A fourteen year old boy named Yang Xiang was helping his father in the fields with the harvest when a tiger suddenly appeared and menaced his father, holding onto the older man with its jaws. Without any concern for his own safety, Yang Xiang threw himself upon the tiger and grabbed its hide with all his strength. The tiger let go of Xiang's father and fled. (Xiaodao, p. 53).