The Chinese Cinderella

During the time of the Ch’in and Han dynasties, a cave chief named Wu married two wives and each gave birth to baby girls. Before long Chief Wu and one wife died leaving one baby, Yeh-Shen, to be reared by her stepmother. The stepmother didn’t like Yeh-Shen for she was more beautiful and kinder than her own daughter so she treated her poorly.

Yeh-Shen was given the worst jobs and the only friend she had was a beautiful fish with big golden eyes . Each day the fish came out of the water onto the bank to be fed by Yeh-Shen. Now Yen-Shen had little food for herself but she was willing to share with the fish. Her stepmother hearing about the fish disguised herself as Yen-Shen and enticed the fish from the water. She stabbed it with a dagger, and cooked the fish for dinner.

Yeh-Shen was distraught when she learned of the fish’s death. As she sat crying she heard a voice and looked up to see a wise old man wearing the coarsest of clothes and with hair hanging down over his shoulders. He told her that the bones of the fish were filled with a powerful spirit, and that when she was in serious need she was to kneel before the bones and tell them of her heart’s desires. She was warned not to waste their gifts.

Yeh-Shen retrieved the bones from the trash heap and hid them in a safe place. Time passed and the spring festival was nearing. This was a time when the young people gathered in the village to meet one another and to find husbands and wives. Yen-Shen longed to go to the festival but her stepmother wouldn’t allow it because she feared that someone would pick Yeh-Shen rather than her own daughter. The stepmother and the daughter left for the festival leaving Yeh-Shen behind. Yeh-Shen wanting desperately to go asked the bones for clothes to wear to the festival. Suddenly she was wearing a beautiful gown of azure blue with a cloak of kingfisher feathers draped around her shoulders. On her feet were beautiful slippers. 

They were woven of golden threads in a pattern of a scaled fish and the soles were made of solid gold. When she walked she felt lighter than air. She was warned not to lose the slippers. Yeh-Shen arrived at the festival and soon all were looking her way. The daughter and step-mother moved closer to her for they seemed to recognize this beautiful person. Seeing that she would be found out, Yeh-Shen dashed out of the village leaving behind one of the golden slippers.

When she arrived home she was dressed again in her rags. She spoke again to the bones, but they were now silent. Saddened she put the one golden slipper in her bedstraw. After a time a merchant found the lost slipper, and seeing the value in the golden slipper sold it to a merchant who gave it to the king of the island kingdom of T’o Han.

Now the king wanted to find the owner of this tiny beautiful slipper. He sent his people to search the kingdom but no ones foot would fit in the tiny golden slipper. He had the slipper placed on display in a pavilion on the side of the road where the slipper had been found with an announcement that the shoe was to be returned to the owner.

The king’s men waited out of site. All the women came to try on the shoe. One dark night Yeh-Shen slipped quietly across the pavilion, took the tiny golden slipper and turned to leave, but the king’s men rushed out and arrested her. She was taken to the king who was furious for he couldn’t believe that any one in rags could possibly own a golden slipper. As he looked closer at her face he was struck by her beauty and he noticed she had the tiniest feet.

The king and his men returned home with her where she produced the other slipper. As she slipped on the two slippers her rags turned into the beautiful gown and cloak she had worn to the festival. The king realized that she was the one for him. They married and lived happily ever after. However, the stepmother and daughter were never allowed to visit Yeh-Shen and were forced to continue to live in their cave until the day they were crushed to death in a shower of flying stones.

Source: http://www.myseveralworlds.com/2007/08/02/yeh-shen-the-chinese-cinderella/

The Forbidden Fruit

“Let me tell the story, grandma.” said grandfather, passionately. “Where was I? Ah, yes – your grandmother on your mum’s side was very, very busy; your other grandfather only had one leg, so he couldn’t look after you very well. Your young cousins had to help out by looking after you. They were children themselves, you see. They were no bigger than you are now. That made it difficult for them to know what was best for you.

One day, they could not stop you crying, because you were very hungry. They gave you what they liked most – cherries – and you swallowed most of them whole. But you were too small. You were only a baby, and the cherries weren’t ripe, or washed. So, you became ill, very quickly.

The problem was that we didn’t know.

You were so poorly that your other grandmother was unsure of what to do and she was too afraid to tell us. The doctor in that village didn’t have the right medicines to give you.”

“So what happened, grandfather?” I asked.

“Well, at night, an Angel came to me and whispered in my ear that you were in great danger. That you were extremely unwell and that I had to bring you back.” Grandfather paused for a few, long seconds, to assess my reaction.

“The next day, I rang your other grandmother. I asked about you being sick but – stubbornly – she didn’t tell me anything. I could not sleep that night, so the next day, I called again and – this time – she said:
‘I don’t have money to bring her to you, so you’d better get on the train and take her away. She’s been very ill, passing blood in her nappies every day.’
So, that afternoon, I got on the train to Ocna Mures. We were so worried.”

“When I arrived, and took you in my arms, you were so weak. You just let out a big sigh and put your head on my shoulder. You also had a bruised, scarred nose and upper lip. It seemed that your pram had fallen down a flight of stairs, with you inside it.”

I realised that my grandfather’s eyes were full of tears, as he told me the story. I wished he hadn’t told me anything. I didn’t want to see him cry. Trying to comprehend, I watched him. Grandma was also wiping her eyes. 

“When grandfather brought you home, I called our doctor”, she said. “He came late at night. He checked you, took a blood sample and then gave us a box of powders from his medicine chest. He explained to us:
‘If you manage to give her this whole box of powders with water by morning, she’ll most likely live. She seems to have dysentery, I will confirm tomorrow.’
We did as he told us. We sang to you, through the night, and fed you those powders, with lots of boiled water. You were so well behaved. You didn’t cry at all. You were so sleepy that we had to keep waking you up. In the morning, when the medicine was all gone, we let you sleep uninterrupted for a while. Slowly but surely, you got better. You stopped bleeding. The next day, the doctor came again to see you and he was very relieved that you lived. It took us a while to get you back to full strength.”

“Yes, and soon after that, for the first time, you began to speak.”

“So many words, and pronounced correctly.”

The story, often re-told through my childhood and youth, was a story of strength, and of love. It still keeps its dark implications, as well as its stunningly heart-warming ones. 

Grandfather picked me up, and smiling, gave me a big hug.

“So, my Sweetest, you should be careful about eating too many cherries.” he said, looking at me intently.

“No more cherries today for you, young lady!!” he concluded, while my expressions of delight at being held up in the air filled the room with noise.

He always had a way of sweetening the bitterest medicine.

To this day, cherries are my favourite fruit. The forbidden ones, that always make me ill, yet I can never stop myself from having them.


Source: http://chroniclesoflightanddarkness.blogspot.com/2011/06/story-of-forbidden-fruit.html

The Man Who Became A Fish

Some years ago a noted official became the magistrate of Ko-song County. On a certain day a guest called on him to pay his respects, and when noon came the magistrate had a table of food prepared for him, on which was a dish of skate soup. When the guest saw the soup he twisted his features and refused it, saying, "To-day I am fasting from meat, and so beg to be excused." His face grew very pale, and tears flowed from his eyes. The magistrate thought this behaviour strange, and asked him two or three times the meaning of it. When he could no longer withhold a reply, he went into all the particulars and told him the story.

"Your humble servant," he said, "has in his life met with much unheard-of and unhappy experience, which he has never told to a living soul, but now that your Excellency asks it of me, I cannot refrain from telling. Your servant's father was a very old man, nearly a hundred, when one day he was taken down with a high fever, in which his body was like a fiery furnace. Seeing the danger he was in, his children gathered about weeping, thinking that the time of his departure had surely come. But he lived, and a few days later said to us, 'I am burdened with so great a heat in this sickness that I am not able to endure it longer. I would like to go out to the bank of the river that runs before the house and see the water flowing by, and be refreshed by it. Do not disobey me now, but carry me out at once to the water's edge.'

"We remonstrated with him and begged him not to do so, but he grew very angry, and said, ' If you do not as I command, you will be the death of me'; and so, seeing that there was no help for it, we bore him out and placed him on the bank of the river. He, seeing the water, was greatly delighted, and said, 'The clear flowing water cures my sickness.' A moment later he said further, 'I'd like to be quite alone and rid of you all for a little. Go away into the wood and wait till I tell vou to come.'

"We again remonstrated about this, but he grew furiously angry, so that we were helpless. We feared that if we insisted, his sickness would grow worse, and so we were compelled to yield. We went a short distance away and then turned to look, when suddenly the old father was gone from the place where he had been seated. We hurried back to see what had happened. My father had taken off his clothes and plunged into the water, which was muddied. His body was already half metamorphosed into a skate. We saw its transformation in terror, and did not dare to go near him, when all at once it became changed into a great flatfish, that swam and plunged and disported itself in the water with intense delight. He looked back at us as though he could hardly bear to go, but a moment later he was off, entered the deep sea, and did not again appear.

"On the edge of the stream where he had changed his form we found his finger-nails and a tooth. These we buried, and to-day as a family we all abstain from skate fish, and when we see the neighbours frying or eating it we are overcome with disgust and horror."

Im Bang.

Source: http://chestofbooks.com/fairy-tale/Korean/XIV-The-Old-Man-Who-Became-A-Fish.html

The Happy Mirror

Many years ago in Japan, there lived a father, mother and their dear little girl. There was not a happier family in all the islands of Japan. They took their little daughter to the temple when she was just 30 days old. She wore a long kimono, as all the Japanese babies do. On her first doll festival, her parents gave her a set of dolls. There was no finer set anywhere. Her dolls had long, black hair, silky and smooth, and were clad in gowns of satin and silk. Her third birthday was a happy day. Her first sash of scarlet and gold was tied around her small waist.

When that happened, she was no longer their baby daughter. She was their little girl, fast growing up. By the time she was seven, she was helping her parents in many ways. She could talk and dance and sing, and oh! Her parents loved her dearly. One day, a messenger brought exciting news. The emperor had sent for the father. He had to go to Tokyo at once. Tokyo was a long way off and the roads were rough. The father would have to walk every step of the way for he had no horse. There were no railways or even jinrikishas to travel on. The little girl was glad her father was going to Tokyo. She knew that when he came back, he would tell her many interesting stories.

She knew that he would bring her presents, too. The mother was happy because the father had been sent for the emperor. This was a great honor. At last, all was ready. The father looked very fine as he started out on a long trip. He was going to meet his emperor, so he dresses in fine robes of silk and satin. The little family stood on the porch of the little house to bid him goodbye. “Do not worry. I will come back soon,” said the father. “While I’m away, take care of everything. Keep our little daughter safe.””Yes, we shall be alright. But you must take care of yourself. Come back to as soon as you can,” said mother.

The little girl ran to his side. She caught hold on his sleeve to keep a moment. “Father,” she said, “I will be very good while waiting for you to come back.” Then he was gone. He went quickly down to the little garden and out through the gate. There all they could see of him go down the road. He looked smaller as he went farther away. Then all they could see of him was his peaked hat. Soon, that was out of sight, too. The days seemed very long for the mother and the little girl. Many times each day, they would pray for the good father. They prayed for his safe journey. The days slipped by one and morning, the little girl saw someone coming over the mountains. She ran to tell her mother. Could that be father? They both went to the garden gate to watch.

As he came nearer, they knew that he was father. They both ran to meet him, the little girl on one side, and the mother on the other side. They were all happy again. As soon as they went into the house, the little girl ran to untie his father’s straw sandals. The mother lovingly took off his large straw hat. Then they all sat down on the white mat, for the father had brought some presents. There in a bamboo basket was a beautiful doll and a box full of cakes. “Here,” he said to the little girl, “is a present for you. It is a prize for taking care of Mother and the house while I was away.””Thank you, Father dear,” said the little girl. Then she bowed her head to the ground. In a second, she had picked up her lovely new doll and had gone to play with it. Again, the husband looked into the basket.

This time, he brought out a square wooden box. It was tied with gaily-colored ribbon. He handed it to his wife saying, “And this is for you, my dear.” The wife took the box and opened it carefully. One side had beautifully carved pine trees and storks on it. The other side was bright and shining as smooth as a pool of water. Inside, there was something made on silver. She had never seen so lovely a present. She looked and looked at the pine trees and stork, which seemed almost real. Then she looked closer at the shining side. Suddenly she cried, “I see someone looking at me in this round thing! She is very lovely.” Her husband laughed but said nothing.

Then the mother’s eyes grew big with wonder. “Why, the lady I see has a dress just like mine!” she said. “She seems to be talking to me.””My dear,” her husband answered, “that is your own face that you see. What I have given you is a mirror. All the ladies in Tokyo have them. If you bring a smiling face in the mirror, you will see a smiling face. If you are cross face, you will see a cross face in it.” The wife thanked her husband for the lovely gift. She promised always to bring a happy face to the mirror. She then shut it up in the box and put it away.

Often, the mother would take out the box and look inside. Each time, she was surprised. She liked to see her eyes shine. She liked to see how red her lips were. She always brought a smiling face to it, so that she might always see a smiling face. Soon, she grew tired of looking in the box and she put it away. Only once a year did she open it and look at her face. She decided to save the lovely gift for the little girl when she grew up. The years went by. The little girl grew to be a woman and no longer played with dolls. Instead each day, she helped her mother about the house. How proud her father was of her! He saw that she was growing more like her mother.

Her hair was the same; her eyes were the same; her mouth was the same. She was the very image of her mother. One day, the mother called her daughter and said, “My daughter, I have something to give you. Once each year, you are to look into it.” She took the square wooden box from the drawer. Carefully, the daughter untied the ribbon. Wondering, she lifted the cover and looked at the mirror. “Why, Mother!” she cried. “It’s you! You look just as you used to look when I was a little girl.”

”Yes, dear,” the mother answered, “that is the way I looked when I was young. Be sure to smile when you look at me and I will smile back to you.” From that day on, the good daughter kept the box near her. Once each year, she would open it. Her mother’s words were true. Always, she saw her mother’s face. Oh, the joyful surprise! It was her mother, more beautiful each time that she looked. She seemed to smile at her daughter and the daughter smiled back at her. The daughter remembered to bring smiles to the little box and smiles always came back to her.

Cool IMAGE!!!

The Spider's Thread

It so happens that one day the Lord Buddha is strolling alone on the shore of the lotus pond in Paradise. All the lotus blossoms blooming in the pond are globes of the whitest white and from the golden stamen in the center of each an indescribably pleasant fragrance issues forth abidingly over the adjacent area. Day is just dawning in Paradise. In due course, the Lord Buddha pauses at the edge of the pond and beholds an unexpected sight between the lotus petals veiling the water’s surface. Since the depths of Hell lay directly below the lotus pond on Paradise, the scenery of Sanzu-no-kawa and Hari-no-yama can be clearly seen through the crystal-clear water just as if looking through a stereopticon.

Then, the single figure of a man, Kandata by name, squirming there in the depths of Hell along with other sinners, comes into the Lord Buddha’s gaze. This man Kandata is a murderer, an arsonist, and a master thief with numerous robberies to his credit. Yet, the Lord Buddha recalls that he had performed a single good deed. That is to say, once when Kandata was traveling through the middle of a dense forest he came upon a spider crawling along the roadside. Thereupon, he immediately raised his foot and was about to trample it to death. But, he suddenly reconsidered, saying, “Nay, nay, small though this spider be, there is no doubt that it too is a living being. Somehow or other it seems a shame to take its life for no reason.” In the end he spared the spider rather than killing it.

While observing the situation in Hell, the Lord Buddha remembers that this Kandata had spared the spider. And he decides that in return for having done just that one good deed he would, if he could, try to rescue this man from Hell. Luckily, he sees nearby a spider of Paradise spinning a beautiful silver web on a jade colored lotus petal. The Lord Buddha takes the spider’s thread gently into his hand and lowers it between the pure white lotus blossoms straight into the distant depths of Hell.

This is Chi-no-ike in the depths of Hell and along with other sinners Kandata is floating up to the surface and sinking back down over and over. No matter what direction one looks it is completely dark. And when one notices out there in that darkness the glow from the needles of the dreaded Hari-no-yama floating up vaguely into view, the feeling of helplessness is beyond description. Moreover, the surroundings are perfectly still, like the inside of a tomb. If a sound is to be heard, it is merely the faint sigh of some sinner. The sighs are faint because anyone who has fallen to this level of Hell is already so exhausted by the tortures of the other Hells that he or she no longer has even enough strength to cry out. Therefore, as one might expect, the master thief Kandata himself is unable to do anything but writhe, exactly like a frog caught in the throes of death, as he chokes on the blood of Chi-no-ike.

One day, however, something happens. Kandata happens to raise his head and spies in the sky above Chi-no-ike a silvery spider’s thread, a thin line shimmering in the silent darkness, gently descending toward him from the distant, distant firmament as though it were afraid to be seen by the eyes of men. Upon seeing it Kandata involuntarily claps his hands for joy. If he were to cling to this thread and climb it to its end, he would surely be able to escape from Hell. No, if all went well, he would even be able to enter Paradise. And were this to come to pass, he would never ever be driven up Hari-no-yama again, nor would he ever have to sink again in Chi-no-ike.

Having thought thusly, Kandata quickly takes firm hold of that spider’s thread with both hands and using all his might begins climbing up and up hand-over-hand. From long ago Kandata has been completely used to doing this sort of thing since he is a former master thief. But because the distance between Hell and Paradise is some tens of thousands of ri, try though he might, he is not able to ascend to the top easily. After climbing for a while, even Kandata finally tires; he is unable to continue for even one more pull on the thread. Having no other choice, he intends first to take a short rest. While hanging onto the thread he looks down on the distance below.

He sees that thanks to the efforts he spent climbing, Chi-no-ike, where he had just recently been, is now already hidden at the bottom of the darkness. He also sees that the faint glow of the terrifying Hari-no-yama is below him. If he were to continue at this pace, the escape from Hell just might not be as difficult as he had expected. Wrapping his hand around the spider’s thread, Kandata laughs in a voice unused during his years in Hell, “I’m saved! I’m saved at last!” Then he suddenly notices that below him on the spider’s thread, just like a line of ants, a countless number of sinners are following him, climbing up and up for all they are worth. When Kandata sees this, he momentarily freezes from shock and fear, his mouth agape and his eyes rolling in his head like an idiot. How could it be that this slender spider’s thread, seemingly strained even under the weight of just him alone, is able to support the weight of that many? By some chance were the thread to break, he, the egotistical Kandata who at great pains had climbed this far, and everyone else would plummet headlong back into Hell. For that to happen would be a disaster. But, even as he says this, sinners, not by the hundreds, nor even by the thousands, but in swarms, continue to crawl up from the bottom of the pitch dark Chi-no-ike and climb up the thin luminous spider’s thread in single file. If he doesn’t do something right away, the thread will break in two at the center and he will surely fall.

At this point, Kandata yells in a loud voice, “Hey you sinners. This spider’s thread is mine. Who the hell asked you to climb it? Get down! Get off it!” Just as he screams at the other sinners the spider’s thread, which till then had had nothing wrong with it, suddenly breaks with a snap right where Kandata is hanging. So, Kandata, too, is doomed. Without even time to cry out he goes flying through the air spinning like a top and in the wink of an eye plunges headfirst into the dark depths of Hell. Afterwards, only the shortened spider’s thread from Paradise dangles there, glittering dimly in a sky void of both moon and stars.

The Lord Buddha stands on the shore of the lotus pond in Paradise having taken in everything from start to finish. When Kandata finally sinks like a rock to the bottom of Chi-no-ike he resumes strolling, his countenance seemingly creased with sadness. Seen through divine eyes, the Lord Buddha thought it wretched that Kandata’s compassionless heart led him to attempt to escape by himself and for such a heart falling back into Hell was just punishment. The lotus blossoms in the lotus pond of Paradise, however, are not concerned in the least about what has happened. Those blossoms of the whitest white wave their cups around the divine feet of the Lord Buddha and from the golden stamen in the center of each an indescribably pleasant fragrance issues forth abidingly over the adjacent area. Noon draws near in Paradise.

Source: http://kanhom.com/2009/02/06/the-spiders-thread/ -ki3r_15