Week 9 Reading - Chinese Folktales A
This week's readings come from Chinese Fairy Tales. While I've always loved folk tales from the East, I've never encountered many tales from China, outside of historical ones.
The very first story caught me off guard so much to the point where I had to begin writing immediately after it. The story of the Favorite of Fortune and the Child of Ill Luck, in no uncertain terms, is a bad story. I'm sure it's seen as a classic to some or many, but to me, it almost reads like an anti-joke. I hate to rag on the classic tales of another culture, but this story is sad all the way through, offers only the moral of "Don't go out of your station.", and ends poorly for everyone. If I were to use this story in any way, it would be to create a sad tale to catch my readers off guard, like this one did to me. A solid example of what I'd like to avoid doing, in general, but it still teaches a valuable lesson.
In a bit of contrast, I was rather entertained by the story of Why the Dog and Cat are Enemies. The quick, quaint tale of first cooperation followed by almost-accidental betrayal (or perhaps cunning) is entertaining and provides a neat reason for why the cat and dog despite one another. I'm particularly entertained by the end, being a major cat person myself. The cunning of a cat is easily believable to anyone who's been around a cat long enough, and completely ridiculous to anyone who's owned one (they're dumb dorks).
The other stories followed similar measures of odd, interesting, and moderately depressing, but perhaps those are my reactions when not understanding the story in the context of the culture. Maybe Part B will offer some more insight toward that.
Bibliography: http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/myth-folklore-unit-chinese-fairy-tales.html
The very first story caught me off guard so much to the point where I had to begin writing immediately after it. The story of the Favorite of Fortune and the Child of Ill Luck, in no uncertain terms, is a bad story. I'm sure it's seen as a classic to some or many, but to me, it almost reads like an anti-joke. I hate to rag on the classic tales of another culture, but this story is sad all the way through, offers only the moral of "Don't go out of your station.", and ends poorly for everyone. If I were to use this story in any way, it would be to create a sad tale to catch my readers off guard, like this one did to me. A solid example of what I'd like to avoid doing, in general, but it still teaches a valuable lesson.
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| A cunning cat |
In a bit of contrast, I was rather entertained by the story of Why the Dog and Cat are Enemies. The quick, quaint tale of first cooperation followed by almost-accidental betrayal (or perhaps cunning) is entertaining and provides a neat reason for why the cat and dog despite one another. I'm particularly entertained by the end, being a major cat person myself. The cunning of a cat is easily believable to anyone who's been around a cat long enough, and completely ridiculous to anyone who's owned one (they're dumb dorks).
The other stories followed similar measures of odd, interesting, and moderately depressing, but perhaps those are my reactions when not understanding the story in the context of the culture. Maybe Part B will offer some more insight toward that.
Bibliography: http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/myth-folklore-unit-chinese-fairy-tales.html
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