In this episode storytellers Kim, Zheng, research assistant Bixin, and hosts Cristina and Taiko focus on two stories: Kim’s retelling of “Scholar Tang Bohu and Maid Qiu Xiang”and Zheng’s “The Farmer and the Snake”. Both stories speak about the nature of good and evil, competing human identity traits, and help us to reflect on how to navigate such distinctions. We talk about the cultural contexts of their stories consider how these contexts help them interpret, tell, and pass on the stories in ways that are meaningful to them.
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Speaker 1
(Speaking in Chinese)
我要给你讲一个故事
这是一个有关于中国明代画家，有名的画家唐伯虎的...
(Speaking in English)
This is a folk tale regarding one of the most notable painters in Chinese art history. His name is Tang BoHu. His superior talent won him wealthy, high-end social status, as well as many admirers….
(music)
Speaker 2
Welcome to Storytelling Translationships. You were just listening to a clip of Kim's story, scholar Tang Bohu and maid Qiuxiang, in Mandarin and in English. To hear the full versions, you can find it on our website, translationships.net. I'm Taiko Aoki-Marcial, and in today's episode, my co-host Christina Sanchez-Martin and I are talking with Kim, Zheng, and Bixin.
(music)
Speaker 2
All right, great to be with you all again. Welcome, and can you introduce yourselves briefly for our listeners?
Speaker 1
Yes, my name is Kim, and I really like the culture, both from western country, also the Chinese culture, and I really like to study and to tell my story. Thank you.
Speaker 3
Hello, my name is Zheng. My story comes from the Aseop’s Fables, and also the story is very popular in my home country, also south of China. We use the Chinese to explain or to educate our kids. Yeah, the story name is the farmer and the snake.
Speaker 4
Hi everyone, my name is Bixin. I'm the research assistant here.
Speaker 2
Great, thanks. So to start off, Zheng, Kim, as well as you, Bixin, we've all shared stories recently, and we appreciate the detailed conversations that you've all had around them. So we're going to put these stories into conversation today.
Could we all start by providing just a really short summary of your story for those who haven't had a chance to listen yet?
Speaker 1
Yes, thank you. My story is about the lovers, two people who fall in love, but there's a difficulties in between them because of social stigma, and also social status, social stigma, also the ancient Chinese cultures not allow them to. But they bend the rule, and persist, and because of their persistence, and conquer difficulty, and then fall in love, and to get married, have a happy ending. Thank you.
Speaker 3
One story I read when I was little still impressed me a lot. This story comes from the Greek Aesop's Fables, The Farmer and the Snake.
In the cold winter day, the farmer saw the dead snake when passing by the fields. Spontaneously, he had compassion on it, and then saved this snake by giving warmth to it. However, when the snake woke up, it gave an unexpected bite to the farmer.
Why did you bite me even after I saved you? asked the farmer. Snake laughed evilly. Do you know who I am? I'm a snake.
In the end of the story, farmer unfortunately died with sadness. This story means a lot to me. Even until today, the story reflects me on many aspects of our life.
It asked us, is it true that what goes around comes around?
Speaker 5
So can you comment a little bit more about how these stories help us to understand and question the expectations that society has for us and how these appear in the stories?
Speaker 1
For my story, it's about love. There's a condition that both people, both two of them, need to fall in love first. So there's some expectation that one pursues another, and maybe the other one does not return the favor.
So no matter how much you make the effort, sometimes expectations may fall. But under this, my story is more like a moral society would be accepted because no matter how hard it is, their social status, and their situation are different, but they fall in love. Both of them, they love each other.
So that's why they have the happy ending, and because of the conditions already put there. Thank you.
Speaker 2
It was really interesting to consider the format or like the modality that these stories were shared with you. Zheng and Kim, both of you told stories that you first read in books that your parents had, but they're also kind of well-known stories that exist and circulate in other formats. For example, these are stories that are orally told in many places. They're in television and movies.
So this question is kind of what is the significance of how a story is told, the modality of the story? What are the differences? What are the opportunities, advantages of different storytelling formats? How does it change from one format to another, or does it change? And what is the meaning or importance of that?
Speaker 1
Like that. So there's a book with an author in the past is kind of common. And then in the Ming Dynasty, there's more like a historian, also a writer to formally write this story on a book. The name is Feng Menglong. That's in the Ming Dynasty. It's because that person is collecting the folk tales and wanted to record them.
This part, this part of the story is not that interesting. That's why, but the main, what we call Zheng is the same, but the story itself is not very interesting. It's kind of plain. Then, for example, when we watch on the TV and a movie, and when my mom told me, there's the adding more like interesting story, for example, like the female character Chu Xiang is very beautiful and smart. But in the TV shows later created, and also the movie, they said, except Chu Xiang, other female servants are ugly. Because they said that Chu Xiang is not as beautiful as he described, because they have the ugly servant, it's kind of like, make like a kind of more like leaves and those flowers to comparison, to make it more interesting to compare with other ugly servants.
Also, they have more, for example, like more details that's not showing in the books, and then people adding the details so that make it more have the more like a have the flash. For example, when Tang Bohu, the male character, met Miss Chu Xiang, Chu Xiang is feeding the hungry, feeding the homeless people in the temple. In the book, there's no description of that.
In the movie and also in the TV shows, they were showing more like a character of the female character Chu Xiang make it more like kind and beautiful and smart. And that looks more like a higher, the actress is more like a beautiful, charming like that. But in the books, they're not reflecting much of the details of the information.
When the movie first come out is in the 1980s. And I never saw that one. The first one I saw in the movie is 1993.
And after that will be TV shows produced by the Hong Kong director. And it's in 2000. After 2000, they have many more version of that so that we can tell from generation to generations.I hope that answer your question.
Speaker 4
Yeah, so what Zheng just shared, when she was a child, she was already told about this story, the farmer and the snake. When she heard this story, her first reaction was that, oh, we can't do the same like what the farmer did. So they kind of laughed on what the farmer did. The educational meaning that she received, when she first read the story was that we should treat the right people with kindness, and stay away from evil people. So when she read this book, this from a storybook, she learned that kindness cannot be given to everyone. It should be chosen, and should be selected for the right people. After that, she also learned about this story through short videos, and TV like cartoons. So there are many modalities of this story being told.
However, the meaning told by this story remains the same, that the purpose of this story is to educate children how to give kindness. When she looks back on the story, she has some different ideas. So when she told this story to her son, she has her own interpretation that she wants to share with her son.
And this is one of her favorite ways to tell this story, like to have her own interpretation when reading the story of the farmer and the snake to other people.
Speaker 5
Wow, so interesting. And this next question kind of connects back to that. Since it seems that the stories revolve around relationships that stories have and create across generations, and this is a point that connects both of your stories too. Kim, you mentioned that your mom's generation as well as your generation and your cousins and their children all know about that story. And Zheng, you mentioned that your parents use stories like this to educate you and also that you told the story to your son. We just heard about that, your own interpretation of this story. And all of us, Taiko, Bixin and I also have stories that connect us to our families as well. So how do you think that the stories might help connect people across generations? Is it important to pass on the knowledge from the stories to future generations? Why yes or no, or maybe yes and no and both? Can you tell us a little bit more about this?
Speaker 1
Yes, the reason that the story we have is very popular and passed along from generations to generations is about love. Loving is like an i
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- PublishedApril 16, 2024 at 1:44 AM UTC
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