Reading Notes - China Folktales (Reading A)

I haven't read many Chinese Folktales, but I really liked these stories. They were short and sweet, but still super entertaining. It had the same randomness of the African tales--with all the magical realism and the ability of mortals to interact with the divine. I noticed a few overarching themes in these stories, and even though they weren't exactly what I'm used to but I still found some new favorites.

The first two stories, "The Favorite Child of Fortune and the Child of Ill-Fate" and "The Cave of the Beasts," have semi-unsatisfying endings. In the first story, it seems like everything goes right for a while in the first story, wherein the unlucky wife and her lucky husband are separated for years and then reunited as emperor and empress--then the wife dies eighteen days later while the husband lives for years thereafter. In "The Cave of the Beasts," the father leaves his children to die in the woods, and when they use their cleverness and quick-action to live (and to luckily stumble upon a cave full of priceless jewels), the father feels remorse and goes back for them. Then profits off of the luck of the daughters that he wanted to kill. Did I mention that the reason that he wanted to kill them is because they ate some eggs that he found. Why didn't he get his comeuppance?

I like that different myths start out with there having been 10 suns in the sky and provide different reasons for there only being 1 now--from Yang Oerlang hunting them down in revenge for his mother to an emperor with many talents shooting them out of the sky until one remained. It's very cool to see the different origin stories, and it helps you remember that while "Chinese" refers to a large nation with a lot of people, there are different traditions existing within the country as a whole. There is also a prevailing sense of self-determinism, and you can kind of see this in the story "The God of War," where it's hinted at that Guan Yu was once a regular man, a regular warrior. But he was so brave and noble and faithful, even in death, that he became the Master of War. It's also hinted at that Confucius, who we know was a normal man--but an excellent scholar--became the Master of Wisdom. That means that if you excel at something and are pure in your intentions, you can reach a semi-deified status. 

I think that I would like to write a story based on the "King of Ants", which is about a scholar witnessing the hunt and politics of tiny people--before they taunt him and h destroys them in anger. Or maybe a story based on the "Lady of the Moon," wherein an emperor is able to find a way to get to the realm of the Moon, and is given gifts by the moon.

Guan Yu Seated (Chinese God of War)
by Hosukai via Wikimedia