Tag Archives: Folk Tale

Folktale: Chinese Folktale

Nationality: American-Malaysian, Chinese, Asian
Age: 28
Occupation: Graduate Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 25, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese, Mandarian, Chinese, Cantonese, Korean

This is a Chinese folk tale that the informant mother told her. It’s a story explaining why Chinese names are so short.

A long time ago there people would give their children long grandiose names. (The informant couldn’t remember what the names were). There was one family, the original family, with a mother, a father, a son, and a daughter. They were very proud of their son who had a long beautiful name. One day the son was playing and fell down a well. He was hanging on to the inside and starts yelling his family’s names so they could save him. But he starts to get tired because their names are really long. The daughter walks by the well but she only hears part of her name so she walks away. The father walks by the well but he only hears part of his name so he walks away. The mother walks by the well only hears part of her name but she recognizes her son’s voice. She tries to save her son but when she reaches for his hand he begins to fall further into the well. So she grabs his hair and holds tight to try to pull him up. But she couldn’t do it by herself so she calls for her husband by his really long name. She gets tired calling for him but finally her hears and goes to help. But they can’t pull him up by themselves so they call for the daughter by her really long name. They get tired yelling her name but she finally hears them. They pull the son out of well. The family decides to shorten their names to avoid this problem in the future. So that is why Chinese people have short names and why they have lines on their hands, from pulling the boy’s hair.

My informant said that she first heard this tale in elementary school. She still remembers. She also says that she thinks a lot of Chinese folklore tries to explain why things are the way they are.

I noticed that despite being a Chinese folktale there are a few similarities to European folktales. This tale has examples of the rule of three, it uses repetition, and no more than two actors in one scene. Also, the folktale has some slight mythic qualities; the story refers to the original family so the story takes place at the beginning of the world. It’s not sacred though, at least the informant didn’t consider it sacred. I think the reason for that is that this tale is very similar to Tikki Tikki Tempo by Rudyard Kipling. I looked this tale up because I forgot to ask the informant for the title and this book came up. It is also a story about a kid with a long name that falls into a well. However, the story the informant gave me has different characters in it and the tale also explains why people have marks on their hands. Maybe this is case of authored works becoming folklore because the person telling it didn’t know it was copyrighted. The story the informant told me is slightly different from the book. Does authored work turn into folklore when the teller makes changes to the tale?

The Tale of Two Brothers (Vietnam)

Nationality: Vietnamese-American
Age: 52
Residence: Orange, Calfiornia
Performance Date: Dec 2006
Primary Language: Vietnamese
Language: English, German

There once were two brothers who lived in Vietnam.  The older brother’s name was Tan and the younger brother’s name was Lang.  They were very close.  Then one day Tan decided to get married and moved away to live his life happily with his new bride.  His younger brother Lang, began to distance himself from his brother and one day disappeared.  He had left his home and wandered about, finally resting by a river, when he died from exhaustion and turned into a limestone rock.  His brother Tan began to worry about him and went out in search of his brother.  After a while, when he couldn’t find him he found a nice rock to sit on by the riverbed.  He soon fell asleep and died in his sleep from weariness and turned into a tree.  Not soon after, Tan’s wife began to wonder where her husband was and went to look for him.  When she couldn’t find him, she leaned against the tree by the riverbed and rested her foot on the rock.  Eventually she died and turned into a vine that wound around the tree.  Years later, a king came and ground up a leaf from the vine, a nut from the tree, and mixed it with lime.  The product was a sweet red juice that the king loved so from then on he brought that combination to all the weddings and it became a tradition to drink it between family members at every wedding ceremony.

This proverb was first heard by the informant from his mother just after the family had attended his aunt’s wedding.  The informant had asked, “Why do the family bring around that tree to everyone and they have to eat it?”  The informant’s mother answered that the tree represents a good marriage not only between the husband and bride but also a peaceful relationship between the two married people’s families, in order to prevent the same thing that happened to Lang, Tan and his wife.

This is a Vietnamese custom that has long been used at wedding ceremonies and receptions when the family of the groom brings the plant around the room and offering it to family members as they are being introduced.  This custom has also been brought over to the United States and is still practiced at modern traditional Vietnamese weddings as well.  It is passed on from generation to generation, to provide peace and healthy relationships between families.

 

Chinese Folk Belief and Folk Tale – Weasel the Trickster

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 54
Occupation: Retired Banker
Residence: DeXing E. Rd. Lane 331 #28 7FL, Taipei, Taiwan
Performance Date: 4/19/2011
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

This folk tale was collected from my Father. My father was born as a farmer’s son into a veteran’s family in Taipei, Taiwan. His father and mother ran away from China to Taipei during the Chinese Civil War. Much of his cultural practices and beliefs are taken from the mainland Chinese culture. Because of his background, he is considered a “mainlander” in Taiwan (Chinese in Taiwan are divided into Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese or indigenous). My father graduated from Iowa University with an MBA. His B.A was obtained in Taiwan.

During one of our telephone sessions, he mentioned the following story his mother had once told him in Chinese. I’m paraphrasing and translating it here to the best of my memory:

“Your grandmother once told me this story about tending cattle. There’s a big rat-like creature…um, a weasel. Yes, a weasel. It attacks big and small animals. So, back in the day, “cow” boys, who tend the cattle, would take the cattle into the mountains to graze and then bring them back after they’ve had their share of grass. And the weasel though it wants to eat the cattle… can’t–they are much too big. So the weasels, being as sneaky and clever as they are, would come around to the back of the cow and plunge its claws into the cow’s behind. Reaching in, the weasels would pull out the cow’s intestines and tie it to a tree. Feeling pain, the cow would run forward which would cause more of its intestines to be pulled out which would result in more pain which would result in the cow running faster. The cow would run and run until it collapsed…which is when the weasel comes and eats the cow. While I don’t really believe that weasels are able to do this, parents often tell their children this folk tale as to scare them into standing more alert and being more prudent when they are tending the cattle. This way, the children will be ready when real dangers, such as mountain wolves, appear.”

As we can see from what my father said, the implicit moral of this folk tale is to be extra prudent when tending the cattle. We can confirm it as a folk tale because it is not a story to be taken seriously. Although the tale is set in the real world, my father reiterates that no one actually believe weasels have the ability to hunt cattle like the tale depicts. Interestingly, the main character of this folk tale is a weasel. In his description of the weasel, my father describes the weasel as a sneaky and clever creature, but more sneaky than clever. This suggests that the weasel is the trickster character, similar to the fox in Western folklore, in Chinese folk tales.

I, the collector myself, have heard another folk tale featuring the weasel as this sort of trickster character. In this one, a chicken invites a weasel to dinner during Chinese New Year only to find himself the dinner of the weasel. I believe this attribution of the trickster character to the weasel is due to its small size, agile capabilities and carnivorous nature.