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Xiaolong, Lanlan and the Big Devil

Long ago, two children called Xiaolong and Lanlan lived with their mother near Fog Mountain. One day the children went together to look at Fog Mountain’s beautiful scenery. Their mother said to them, “Come back before night, or else the Big Devil will catch you and eat you.”

Xiaolong and Lanlan didn’t listen to what their mother, and played on the mountain until it was very late. Only at dusk did they remember that they had to return home earlier. That night there was no moon; the shadows were many and large. They didn’t notice that behind them was the Big Devil. The Big Devil caught him with his large hands and took them to his cave.

Xiaolong asked the Big Devil, “Why have you caught us? We haven’t done anything wrong.”

Lanlan said, “Our mother will miss us. Please let us go home.”

The Big Devil though for a while and then said, “This region is mine. People can live here, but at night they aren’t allowed to walk in the countryside. They only have to obey this rule in order to live here in peace. You two didn’t obey this rule, therefore you must be punished. I’m going to eat you.” After he finished speaking, the Big Devil placed the children in separate cages.

The Children lived in the cave for one month. Every day the Big Devil would feed Xiaolong vegetables, saying, “Giving meat vegetables makes the soup good.” Every day he would feed Lanlan fruit, saying, “Giving meat fruit makes the meat sweet.”

During the day the Big Devil would sleep. Therefore Xiaolong and Lanlan would plan their escape during this time. Because they weren’t allowed to go outside of their cages, they decided to wait a while, and escape when the Big Devil tried to cook them.

One day the Big Devil’s friend came over to the Big Devil’s cave to eat dinner. The Big Devil wanted to cook a good meal for his friend, so he decided to cook the children.

Firstly he took Xiaolong. Xiaolong bit the Big Devil’s hand, making the Big Devil drop him. Then Xiaolong escaped.

The Big Devil said, “Ow! Now I have to cook the little girl!” The big devil then took Lanlan and put her in his oven. Lanlan was very scared, but fortunately the Big Devil forgot to lock the oven door, so she opened the oven door and then escaped with her brother.

Xiaolong and Lanlan returned home together. When they got to their village, they thought the village looked different. There were more houses than before and the trees were bigger.

The children found their house. Inside was a man, who said, “Who are you looking for?”

The children said, “We’re looking for the woman who lives in this house. Where is she?”

The man said, “She just died. I am her son. Why were you looking for her?”

The children said, “You’re her son? Did she have any other children?”

The man replied, “Besides me, all her other children are no longer alive. For her whole life she was sad because over thirty years ago, my older brother and sister both went to Fog Mountain one day and didn’t return. Every day she would say, ‘You must do as I say, or you’ll end up like your brother and sister.’ She would always sit by the window and wait for them, but they never returned.”

The children said, “We think this woman is our mother. We are Xiaolong and Lanlan. We were caught by the Big Devil, and we just escaped.”

The man said, “If you’re telling the truth, then you made my mother very unhappy. You’re not welcome here. Go away!” The man closed the door and wouldn’t let the children come in.

Besides the man, none of the other villagers would let the children in their homes. When night came, the children were still outside. They wandered and wandered and eventually came to the countryside.

In the countryside, the Big Devil found them and caught them again. He immediately took them home and cooked them. That night the Big Devil had a good meal.

Afterwards, the mothers in that village would tell their children, “Do as I say or you will end up like Xiaolong and Lanlan.”

What does Old Rat like the most?

Old Rat had two friends, called Old Horse and Old Pig.

When he went to Old Horse’s house, he would often say, “I like playing basketball the best.” But when he went to Old Pig’s house, he would say, “I like playing tennis the best.”

One day, while Old Horse and Old Pig were talking, Old Horse said, “Old Rat likes playing basketball the best.”

Old Pig disagreed, and replied, “Old Rat doesn’t like playing basketball the best; he likes playing tennis the best.”

They decided to ask Old Rat what he really liked the best.

When they found Old Rat, Old Pig said, “You told Old Horse that you liked playing basketball the best, but you told me that you liked playing tennis the best.”

Old Horse said, “So then, what do you like to do the best? Which is correct?”

Old Rat replied, “They’re both correct. Old Horse likes to play basketball, and he also plays just as well as I do, so with him I like to play basketball the best. Old Pig is quite short, and he also doesn’t like basketball very much, so he doesn’t play as well as I. However, he plays tennis as well as I do, so with him I like playing tennis the best.”

Yes, Lus, we should listen to our mothers and do what the Party tells usto do, and then the Big White Devil will not eat us.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

We like the rat story.

fgalkin wrote:Yes, Lus, we should listen to our mothers and do what the Party tells usto do, and then the Big White Devil will not eat us.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Whoah! You read more into it than I did. I just wanted to tell kids to listen to their mums. I never thought of the whole Devil/CCP symbolism.

I like it. From now on, I'm going to pretend that I meant that all along... yes...

Kuja wrote:We like the rat story.

Incidentally, who are "we" exactly?

I've heard those!

Well, to be accurate, slight variations on those... And I'm shocked that the second story doesn't involve soccer in some way!

Lusankya wrote:

fgalkin wrote:Yes, Lus, we should listen to our mothers and do what the Party tells usto do, and then the Big White Devil will not eat us.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Whoah! You read more into it than I did. I just wanted to tell kids to listen to their mums. I never thought of the whole Devil/CCP symbolism.

I like it. From now on, I'm going to pretend that I meant that all along... yes...

Well, this story is empblematic of the Chinese tenedency to put the family and the collective over the individual (a Western stroy would have made the kids disobeying their parents a good thing). The Party has been able to use this mentality to achieve great results for themselves.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

That doesn't mean I was thinking about it when I wrote it.

... or did you think that I'd just found them somewhere and then translated them?

No... I wrote them myself, and then translated them because most of my friends are English-speakers and I, for one, couldn't be arsed translating them every time.

Ok... so they seem to be more like fables than fairy tales. I'll write one with gore soon enough. Just you wait and see. Still, this one's fun. God, I'm certain that this one is a blatant rip off of something that Aesop wrote.

Xiao Lan and the Ox

Xiao Lan was a very pretty child. When she was walking down the street, people would always tell her mother, “Your child is the most beautiful child in the world!” Because she was very pretty, people would let her do whatever she wanted, so she became very spoilt. If she wasn’t allowed to do what she wanted, she got very angry. People would then say, “This child is very cute. We must let her do what she wants.”

Every year, Xiao Lan grew. She was no longer as cute as she once was, but she got angry more often. People no longer told her that she was cute; instead they said, “You’re older now. Act like an adult.”

Xiao Lan thought, “They used to like me a lot and say I was very cute. Why do they act like this now?” She felt very sad and went and ate lollies.

One day while she was talking with a friend, Xiao Lan said, “I’m a very cute child. Why doesn’t anyone like me?”

Her friend said, “When you were little you were very cute, but you’re now an adult. You’re no longer as cute as before and you’ve become fat. You never smile, instead you always frown. Also, you always get angry.”

Hearing what her friend said, Xiao Lan got very angry. She said, “Aren’t you my friend? How can you say you’re my friend and at the same time say this kind of thing?” Then she dashed out of the room crying.

Xiao Lan told all her friends what happened during the conversation. Her friends all said, “She has a point. You were once a very cute child, but now you’re an adult and you should act like an adult.”

Xiao Lan got angry again and said, “Nobody’s my friend!” Then she went to the woods. She thought “If I stay here for a few days, then they’ll certainly miss me. When I’ll return, they’ll certainly be happy to see me.”

After a short while, Xiao Lan got thirsty. She found a pool, and in it she saw her reflection. She thought the reflection was not cute and quite fat, and that its face looked very unhappy.

Xiao Lan said to the reflection, “I feel sorry for you. You’re both unhappy and not good-looking. I’m certain you don’t have any friends.”

The reflection didn’t answer. This made Xiao Lan get cross, and she angrily hit the reflection. The reflection disappeared and when it reappeared it looked very angry. Xiao Lan said to her reflection, “Does even you, who has no friends, not want to be my friend? How can I find friends?”

The reflection still didn’t answer. Xiao Lan cried by the edge of the pool and cried. She was still crying when an ox came to the pool to drink. He saw Xiao Lan and asked her, “Why are you here crying?”

Xiao Lan said, “Because I don’t have any friends. Even the person in the pool won’t be my friend.”

The ox looked at Xiao Lan and then looked at the reflection, and then said, “How do you know the person in the pool won’t be your friend?”

Xiao Lan said, “Because they got angry. Even if they wanted to be my friend, I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who got angry all the time.”

The ox thought for a while and then said, “If you don’t like people to get angry with you, how can you expect people to like you, who is always angry?”

The last sentence sounds off....

I put a comma in, which should make it sound better.

Now it's not that far off the ending of most fables, although I do admit it's a clunky sentence in English. That's why I wrote it in Chinese first. It sounds much better in the language it was intended to be written in.

Moral of the story: don't get fat.

*avoids an incoming swarm of hurled objects*

I kid, I kid!

I think it's a good fable.

I like this story. I actually used the vocab from the lesson when I wrote it. Generally I just go off on some tangent and write whatever comes into my head, but this time I actually stuck to "task" ("task" being a somewhat arbitrary thing when you're writing for fun).

I also quite like the title.

The Master of Dreams

Lying in bed I closed my eyes. When I opened them I was in front of a large gate. Confucius was in front of me and said, “Welcome to Dreamland. Here there are monsters and angels. All the world’s animals are here.”

I asked him, “What can I do?”

Confucius said, “You can do whatever you want.”

I said, “Why?”

Confucius said, “You are Dreamland’s creator. Dreamland reflects your Self.”

I then went into dreamland to do the things that I wanted.

Beside a beautiful stream, five beautiful young women were dancing. I danced with them. From sunup to night we danced. Afterwards I felt very tired. I said, “We have danced from very early. Now let’s go and eat!”

The women said, “We can’t go! We are the Dancing Women. We dance endlessly.”

I said, “I want to stop dancing, and to go and eat with you.”
The women said, “You can stop dancing. It is only us who are not allowed to stop.”

I left unhappily, with the women still dancing. I was curious: why were the reality and what I wanted opposite?

Then I found a large castle. Ten servants game from it and said, “Welcome, your Majesty. You must be tired. Come and eat. Afterwards General Huang will give you a report on the country.”

I said, “Your Majesty? Country? What is the meaning of this?”

The servants said, “You are the king. This is your kingdom.”

“I’m a king?” I thought. “How could I not know?”

\General Huang was a very short youth. I talked about the kingdom with him for a long time. He told me what the people’s life was like. Every day a monster would come and attack the people. Everyone was afraid of the monster and did not like to go outside. This made the kingdom very weak. He said, “We must go and stop the monster’s tyranny.”

I agreed. The next day I went with General Huang to fight the monster.

The monster was living in a forest. General Huang gave me a sword which he said was one of the most precious treasures of the kingdom. He said he would wait outside of the forest, so I went in alone to fight the monster. Although I had my sword, the monster was still much more powerful than me. It captured me and then asked me, “Why did General Huang send you here alone to fight me? He must know that you couldn’t kill me!”

I said, “I don’t know.”

The monster then took out its magical mirror and gave it to me. It said, “This mirror will show General Huang’s plans. Look in it and you will certainly see that he is a traitor.”

In the mirror I saw General Huang tell the court that I had died. Because I had no children, he then became the king.

I felt that it was very strange. I couldn’t control anything.

I asked the monster, “Can I go now?”

The monster replied, “No. I captured you. Why would I then let you go?” I didn’t know how to reply.

I don’t know how long I lived with the monster. All I know is that one day Confucius came. He talked with the monster for a while. No matter how hard I listened, I still couldn’t clearly hear what they were saying. Afterwards, Confucius came to me and said, “I’m not going to take you home.” As soon as he spoke, we arrived at the gates to Dreamland.

I asked Confucius, “I am Dreamland’s creator. Why can’t I control it?”

Confucius replied, “It looks as though although you are Dreamland’s creator, you are not its master. Dreamland reflects your Self. If you don’t control yourself, then you can’t control Dreamland.

Then I woke up. Confucius, the Dancing Women, the kingdom and the monster all did not exist in reality. But from this dream, I knew what to do with my life. Afterwards, I controlled my Self, so the next time I go to Dreamland I can not only be its creator, but also its master. The next time I go to Dreamland, the Dancing Women can stop dancing, General Huang will no longer be king and the monster will no longer attack the people.

I now look forward to my dreams, because when I dream, what I want and what happens are the same.

...wow.