Description: “There is the story of dobu hours… is that how you pronounce it? I forgot, crap. Crap I forgot what the other one was called. Oh, Dorobou Hour Bru. That was it. So Dorbu was, crap. Who was who? Well one of them is poor and one of them is rich and the poor works for the poor one except the rich one treats the poor one really baddy. And the poor one goes out to the woods to chop some wood with his copper axe and he… wait no… no that wasn’t it. No that’s a different story. Well it’s still about this poor man. So a sparrow hurts its wings and kinda lands near his house or something like that. So the poor man who is kind, treats the bird out of his kindness and says thank you and promises to give him something in return. A few days later he comes back with a gourd seed and he tells the poor man to plant it. And he’s like, the poor man is like, ok fine I’ll plant the seed. He plants it, he lets it grow and the gourd got MASSIVE. In the legend it’s as big as he is. And when it matured he cracked it open and there’s like jewels and treasures. But there’s only like three or four gourds there. They all had something very specific in them. I only remember one had money, like A LOT of money. And then so the rich one got jealous and so he intentionally broke a sparrow’s wing and the fixed it so that he could also get a gourd seed from it. Except because he intentionally broke the wing and then fixed it that’s not right. And that’s not nice. And since it’s a children’s folktale nice things don’t get you anywhere. And so the gourd side instead of having gold or jewels it has evil spirits. And then he runs out of the neighborhood screaming. Yeah.”

2. This story represents a clear ethical value held by the Chinese people. They value honesty and tell these tales to their children to impart that characteristic to the generations to come.

3. I walked into his dorm room and asked him if he could tell me some folklore. He very happily said sure and shared this story with me.

4. You can definitely see this story trending throughout other cultures as well. I’ve even heard them over here in the U.S. They impart a love for the broken and a sympathy for the lower class. At this point, it’s safe to conclude that it was the poor class that ended up spreading this tale the most. There would be no reason for the rich class to spread a tale that puts them in a bad light. Also, this variation of the tale tells us that the people spreading this story were heavily involved with gourds.