Chinese Family including the women. Image information.
I really felt that the children and parents in these stories had horrible relationships, but I think that it may be somewhat realistic for Chinese culture. The stories generally had overbearing, very strict parents, but so do my Chinese friends.
The story that bothered me the most was "The Cave of the Beasts," which features a man with seven daughters. First off, the man is selfish. If he did not want to raise seven children, then he should have found a way to stop having kids after girl number four.
When he finds seven goose eggs, he tells his wife to cook them all only for him and not to give the kids any. He also does not allow his wife to have one of the eggs. Predictably, the girls eat all the eggs and the dad gets angry. At this point, a normal "strict" parent does something along the lines of forcing the kids to do rough farming work or making them find 14 more goose eggs to repay him. However, this dad decides he is going to kill all of his children.
I know that the Chinese do not have a great track record when it comes to the treatment of daughters, but killing all seven of your daughters at once should warrant a death penalty even in the Far East. Another thing that I found disturbing that can still be seen in Chinese culture today was that none of the family objected. The five older daughters know the dad's intentions to leave them in the forest for dead and refuse to go, but they do not warn the two youngest daughters. And perhaps worst of all, the mom says absolutely nothing to her own daughters. In modern Chinese culture, the complete dedication to the rules set by authority is very high. You do not speak against the government, and you do not speak against your father (at least not in front of him).
The other part that bothers me so much about this horrendous father-daughter relationship is that after the daughters have faced the dangers of the forest, killed the wolf and the fox, and found huge amounts of treasure, the dad comes back for them and they instantly go back home. I am all for there being reconciliation with family members who may have made bad decisions, but in this case, there should have at least been a deal made where the girls get to keep their own treasure and the dad promises not to try to kill them again.
Overall, not all of the stories in this unit had murderous parents, but there were other subtle examples of the absolute, unquestioned power of parents over their children throughout the fairy tales.
You can find the whole story here.
Hi JD, you can save your posts as drafts until they are really ready to publish - just use the Save button there in Blogger. That's what it is for. :-)
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