Chinese Fairy Tales
I found the tale The Favorite of Fortune and the Child of Ill Luck to be a straightforward tale about practicality and commitment. These days there is such an unrealistic expectation of love, but the princess in this story knew that she had bad luck and chose a man of lower status to marry because she saw that he had good luck. He husband then decides to find his fortune, leaving her alone for eighteen years, where he then become the emperor. When he comes back to get her, she does not recognize him but tells him that she has remained loyal to her husband even though he has been gone and will continue to be loyal to him. That is one thing I love about the Chinese culture, the concepts of loyalty, honor, and responsibility.
I have found that there is somewhat of a pattern among these stories. There is always a dominant father figure who punishes his children severely for their disobedience, yet in the ending there is good fortune to be found. There were similar themes of men as mighty conquerors who always achieved their goals, as well as "ten suns."There is also this concept of tiny warriors, comparable to the size of ants, 2 inches in height, etc.
The Panther was a very familiar story. It is basically the Chinese version of "Little Red Riding Hood," even down to the "how big your eyes are" aspect, with a little bit of the movie "Home Alone" added on to the ending. I found the story to be quiet amusing.
The tale of the Fire-Fox was interesting and very enjoyable. A fox had made a fire-ball which was the elixir of life and a farmer-boy ate it. Since the farmer-boy ate it he possessed many magical gifts and became wealthy because of these. After an extended period of time the fox returned to the boy, patted him on the back, where the fire-ball leapt out of the farmer-boy and was subsequently returned to the fox.
Retribution was a great story as well. Very much about the notion of what goes around comes around. I found the universe being in order to a refreshing and comforting.
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