Week 6 Essay: Horrible Chinese Parents

Parents and Children in Chinese Fairy Tales

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.

Storytelling Week 6

Crazy Dad and His Daughters

Once upon a time in England, there was a man who had seven daughters who lived with his wife in a small cottage in the English countryside. This man's name was Bond, George Bond. You may have heard of his brother, the world famous spy and playboy. George was like his brother in many ways, license to kill, fluent in eleven languages, advanced knowledge of computers and awesome gadgetry. However, they had their differences, George was a one woman kind of man and had become quite the family man with his seven lovely daughters. Having to raise that many daughters came with a skill set and challenges all of their own.

George was very very very protective of his precious children, but he knew that he could not always be there to protect them. As all of the girls grew up, he taught them survival skills in all settings: desert, forest, urban, tundra, flood, and at sea. He also coached them all in fencing, riflery, and the bow. When they were about 10 or 12, he would take them two at a time to go camping, fishing, and hunting in the forest near their grandmother's house. When it was the youngest couples turn to go, they were very excited and were bragging to their sisters about how they were going to kill the big bad wolf! Their older sisters just laughed and wished them good luck.

Cave entrance. Info for this picture.

On the first night of the camping trip, the girls heard a wolf howling at the moon. These were two particularly brave little girls, and armed with a bow and a rifle each, they came out of the tent and quietly jetted toward the howls of the wolf. George, being quite tired from a week of killing key leaders of ISIS, did not wake when his daughters left the tent.

As the young girls approached the wolf, it scattered away. They quickly ran after it and saw that it went into a small opening in the side of a cliff. Being courageous and determined to capture the big bad wolf, they each loaded an arrow and creeped in. The wolf could smell the young girls and got the higher ground. Soon, the girls entered the cave and the wolf pounced down on them from the top of the ceiling. The girls' training kicked in and simultaneously they rolled to the sides and shot off their arrows! Each girls' arrows went straight into both of the wolf's eyes, instantly killing him.

In the morning, George felt a mix of anger, worry, and pride for his youngest daughters. He helped them skin the big bad wolf and take it home for their older sisters to see. The whole family was impressed by the biggest, meanest looking wolf fur they had ever seen.

Author's Note: The original was a horrible story about a father who left his daughters in the woods alone to be eaten by wolves because they ate his eggs for breakfast. So, I thought I would make a better story about a good dad. The original also had them killing a wolf, but it was because they just got lucky. Also, I just really like international spies.

Read the bad story at horrible father.

Week 6 Reading Diary

Chinese Fairy Tales

The Favorite Fortune and the Child of Ill Luck
-Basically this is a story about how bad luck will kill you even if you are the daughter or wife of the emperor.
-Also, if you have good luck then you will become an emperor even if you are born a beggar.

The Cave of the Beasts
-So there were seven little girls who ate these seven goose eggs that their father wanted to eat.
-Their father then planned to kill them by leaving them in the woods for the wolves.
-They found a cave where a wolf and fox lived with all their treasures, killed them, took the gold and went home.

The Panther
-Like the wolf that eats grandma but it's a panther who eats mom and little brother and then the sisters get a bunch of people from the town to help set up a Rube Goldberg of death.

Why Dog and Cat Are Enemies
-Cat and Dog journey together and scheme to get the good luck of a ring back to their owners.
-The cat took all the credit because cats are evil.

Yang Oerlang
-Demigod who can shape shift and destroys nine of ten suns out of anger for his mother's death before he becomes a full god in the heavens.

The Lady of The Moon
-Hou I was such a good archer that he shot down nine of the ten suns with his bow so that people could actually live and work outside without being burnt to a crisp
-He was rewarded for being awesome with an herb of immortality but his wife secretly ate it and then floated up to the moon to live in a castle.
-These stories have yet to mention love.  Chinese.
-The moon palace is made of crystal and so is everything in it. This seems much more like a fairy tale I would expect.

SilkWorm Goddess
-Super Weird
-Engagements to animal then turning into a silkworm and your friend killing you for money then vein put in charge of worms in the afterlife.

The God of War
-Once a man, lots of followers.  Became a god of war in death and his followers killed themselves.
-He is actually a big deal, maybe not quite as big as Confucius though.

The Miserly Farmer
-Wouldn't give a pear so priest thingy does magic and gives away all his pears. These stories teach odd lessons or no lessons really.

The King of The Ants
-The ants look like people but the king made fun of the scholar so the scholar destroyed all of them because humans rule!

The Little Hunting Dog
-This guy saw more tiny people and they left behind their dog and he adopted it and it ate his flies but he killed it on accident in his sleep
-For some reason I have liked this one the most.  Maybe just because there is a dog in it.

Fox-Fire
-A fox that breathes a ball of fire
-Cool fox
-guy steals the magic fire and gets powers (much more interesting than normal)
-Uses powers to make money then loses powers when he gets old
-Chinese do not make very interesting plots

The Talking Silver Foxes
-Not even a story, just about the animals
-Magical creatures are generally smart but get killed in most of these stories.

Retribution
-Witness to a murder but stays silent to protect old man
-Best actual plot of all these stories
-Ghost of dead guy comes back and the soul is placed in a baby next door several years later, ooooh
-little boy accidentally kills the guy who accidentally killed him in the first place, circle of death

The Night on the Battlefield
-Ghost story of a guy who spent the night with a bunch of dead soldiers and didn't know it.

The Maiden who was Stolen Away
-A cyclone moved her while she was sleeping, like in Wizard of Oz
-She is stuck at the top of a tower by an ogre but her brother saves her, not a suitor

The Flying Ogre
-Even when there is king of a twist, there's not
-Ogre was the girl. Then she "probably" was killed

The Sorcerer of the White Lotus Lodge
-Basically the sorcerer for the Illuminati
-He gets caught by 1000 men but then still gets away somehow and gets his son and wife away

Chinese Fairy Tales